Episode 246
They Live By Night (1948) with Jason Christian
We are joined by Cold War Cinema's Jason Christian to discuss 1948's "They Live By Night," credited as one of the earliest noir films and an example of the "socially conscious cinema" of its day. The directorial debut of Nicholas Ray, the film stars Cathy O'Donnell and Farley Granger alongside Howard da Silva and Jay C. Flippen. Based on Edward Anderson's Depression-era novel Thieves Like Us, the film follows a young fugitive who falls in love with a woman and attempts to begin a life with her and clear his name even as the system denies them anything resembling hope. We discuss the black list in Hollywood, the Hays Code and the defiance of artists in the face of a system determined to repress any message that goes against the status quo.
Guest Links
https://jasonchristianwrites.com/
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Transcript
Track 1: Hello, and welcome to Left of the Projector. I'm your host, Evan,
Speaker:Track 1: back again with another film discussion from the left.
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Speaker:Track 1: Wherever you're listening, give us a rating and subscribe so you'll be notified
Speaker:Track 1: of our weekly episodes that drop every Tuesday.
Speaker:Track 1: And now on to the show this week on left
Speaker:Track 1: of the projector we dial it back to the era of hard-boiled detectives
Speaker:Track 1: brunette dames and dark corners of any town usa
Speaker:Track 1: we'll be discussing the 1948 noir they
Speaker:Track 1: live by night directed by nicholas ray starring farley granger and kathy o'donnell
Speaker:Track 1: somehow this was also ray's first feature film and we have some uh be talking
Speaker:Track 1: about that our guest this week you may know from our conversation on red dawn
Speaker:Track 1: is jason christian jason is the co-host of the podcast,
Speaker:Track 1: Cold War Cinema. Thank you for being back on the show.
Speaker:Track 3: Oh, thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here.
Speaker:Track 1: And of course, I'm also joined by my regular co-hosts, Bill and Ward. How are you guys doing?
Speaker:Track 2: Doing good.
Speaker:Track 4: Hello, everybody.
Speaker:Track 1: This may be the first time that I think that Ward and Bill and I have done any noirs.
Speaker:Track 1: I have done a couple before they had joined as hosts of the show.
Speaker:Track 1: So I'm curious, everyone, or maybe for everyone, Sort of their history with, you know,
Speaker:Track 1: noirs and, you know, if it's something you've come across recently,
Speaker:Track 1: you know, they're not really, you know, however you want to want to share.
Speaker:Track 2: No, I don't. I don't have. I don't have a history with noirs.
Speaker:Track 4: Ward doesn't want to share.
Speaker:Track 1: That's okay.
Speaker:Track 2: No, I just don't have a history of noirs.
Speaker:Track 4: Yeah, I don't. I mean, I don't.
Speaker:Track 4: I don't think I do either. I really don't think I've ever really watched anything
Speaker:Track 4: that could be, that I could think of that was like, that would qualify as a noir film.
Speaker:Track 1: Yeah, so this is the first one.
Speaker:Track 4: I think. I mean. Oh, wow.
Speaker:Track 1: I'm not, like, there's no judgment here. I'm just, I'd.
Speaker:Track 4: Like what qualifies?
Speaker:Track 3: Well, I mean, Double Indemnity, Casablanca. These are some of the famous ones.
Speaker:Track 4: Yeah, I don't think I've ever seen. I think I saw Casablanca like a long time
Speaker:Track 4: ago. Like when I was a kid.
Speaker:Track 3: It's great. Third Man Bill.
Speaker:Track 2: Like I think I might have watched it as a kid, but that doesn't like actually count.
Speaker:Track 4: Yeah.
Speaker:Track 3: I thought you guys were movie fans. Well, I'm just kidding.
Speaker:Track 2: Oh, I am. There's just gaps.
Speaker:Track 1: Well, what about you, Jason? I know that you, you know, you talked about those
Speaker:Track 1: kind of films on your podcast.
Speaker:Track 1: So obviously you've, you know, your history of them. But are these like things
Speaker:Track 1: that you liked when you were younger or...
Speaker:Track 3: Um, yeah, sorry, guys, I was just being a jerk.
Speaker:Track 3: But I, I watched some classic Hollywood growing up, not a ton of it.
Speaker:Track 3: I saw Third Man at some point and was blown away by it. That's kind of one of
Speaker:Track 3: the most famous film noir films.
Speaker:Track 3: Vertigo, I saw at some point was head over heels. for it. Yeah.
Speaker:Track 3: Yeah. It's, it's, these are, you know, the definition is loose,
Speaker:Track 3: you know, it's, there's going to be debate about what even qualifies as a film
Speaker:Track 3: noir, but, but once I got a little older, I got really into it.
Speaker:Track 3: So I've seen a lot of these movies and when we covered our whole first season
Speaker:Track 3: of our podcast, most of the movies we covered would be classified as film noir.
Speaker:Track 3: I would say not all of them, but most.
Speaker:Track 1: Yeah. And I'm, I'm similar when When I was younger, I don't know,
Speaker:Track 1: 10, 15, like in high school, middle school, my parents really liked watching
Speaker:Track 1: those kind of old movies, Hitchcock films.
Speaker:Track 1: So I watched a lot of them sort of by, not by choice, like being like,
Speaker:Track 1: you should watch this movie because it's a classic and here's Casablanca, those kinds of things.
Speaker:Track 1: And I feel like I didn't enjoy it because I felt like it was a chore to be forced to watch them.
Speaker:Track 1: And then when I sort of came back to them, I don't know,
Speaker:Track 1: maybe 10 years ago and even
Speaker:Track 1: probably more in the last say five years watching all
Speaker:Track 1: the classic Hitchcock's third man Orson Wells you
Speaker:Track 1: know Laura some of these movies are just they're just uh it's like a lost era
Speaker:Track 1: and a lost art of these kind of you know these films and I I don't know in some
Speaker:Track 1: ways I like loosely don't know if this qualifies fully I mean whatever I maybe
Speaker:Track 1: Jason has a different opinion on whether,
Speaker:Track 1: the film we're talking about today is a noir I just see it as having a lot of some different,
Speaker:Track 1: pieces of it but again it's loose.
Speaker:Track 4: Based on like the definition like i didn't really like,
Speaker:Track 4: it this doesn't i mean like i wouldn't be like oh yeah this is a noir film like
Speaker:Track 4: based on the definition but i also
Speaker:Track 4: would like i have watched a bunch of hitchcock so there if if hitchcock,
Speaker:Track 4: and including vertigo i've seen vertigo multiple times so there i have seen
Speaker:Track 4: noir films i just didn't know that it wasn't a war.
Speaker:Track 3: Yeah maybe i can maybe i
Speaker:Track 3: can just define what it is in case people don't know no
Speaker:Track 3: please yeah yeah so okay so you
Speaker:Track 3: know there's some debate about this but generally speaking what
Speaker:Track 3: film noir film noir means black film in
Speaker:Track 3: french and it was identified as a genre after the fact by french critics in
Speaker:Track 3: the 50s looking back uh or 60s and essentially what it is is hollywood films
Speaker:Track 3: and there's some japanese and some other noirs from around the world but,
Speaker:Track 3: Primarily Hollywood Crime films During World War II and right after World War
Speaker:Track 3: II They're grappling with really dark Themes of,
Speaker:Track 3: Crime You know Bleak pessimism Crisis of masculinity You know there's a lot
Speaker:Track 3: of People dying in the war And people are grappling with that fact Through art, through cinema
Speaker:Track 3: and then of course a lot of them are filmed at night and they have like you know,
Speaker:Track 3: hard shadows uh that's one of
Speaker:Track 3: the defining kind of characteristics is these scenes at night where there's
Speaker:Track 3: a silhouette of somebody or a long shadow and that sort of thing so those are
Speaker:Track 3: some of the um some of them are focused on detectives some are focused on the
Speaker:Track 3: criminal um but that's sort of a broad definition and.
Speaker:Track 1: It just so happens that this film has the word night in it so of course that means that it's a noir no.
Speaker:Track 3: Yeah and a lot of it is filmed at night too yeah it.
Speaker:Track 4: Passes all the vibe checks like it passes the vibe checks for noir 100 like
Speaker:Track 4: you know the you know like the dark you know uh topic and you know and all like
Speaker:Track 4: the living on the edge and all that but like,
Speaker:Track 4: aesthetically it didn't feel like it didn't aesthetically didn't flip those
Speaker:Track 4: like switches that i i associate with noir you know like,
Speaker:Track 4: back alleys and like you know gritty cities like this felt so much more like
Speaker:Track 4: it was like there's this patina of almost like domesticity and then underneath.
Speaker:Track 3: That.
Speaker:Track 4: Is that it really dark stuff.
Speaker:Track 3: I agree and there are some noirs
Speaker:Track 3: that aren't set in cities but that is one of the features of
Speaker:Track 3: most noirs they're usually set in urban
Speaker:Track 3: spaces there are some rural noirs um
Speaker:Track 3: one of the most famous is it'll come
Speaker:Track 3: to me in a minute but um it's actually probably one of
Speaker:Track 3: the top five for me too but it's set in the countryside um
Speaker:Track 3: but generally speaking yeah they're typically um in the city this one isn't
Speaker:Track 3: this one's on the run yeah um but but can i can i explain why what what makes
Speaker:Track 3: this different maybe i should just explain how this categorized different than
Speaker:Track 3: nor please maybe yeah Yeah.
Speaker:Track 1: You could also say maybe as part of that, like why, you know,
Speaker:Track 1: what made you choose it as part of that kind of sort of.
Speaker:Track 3: Why I chose it is because, OK, this film critic named Tom Anderson,
Speaker:Track 3: and he's also a filmmaker, he made Los Angeles Plays Itself and he made an essay
Speaker:Track 3: film called Red Hollywood about communists.
Speaker:Track 3: Personnel in Hollywood, like actors and directors, screenwriters.
Speaker:Track 3: He came up with a list of what he called film gray films.
Speaker:Track 3: And this is on that list. He identified 13 films from 1947 to 1951. So it's only 13 films.
Speaker:Track 3: And we covered about half of them on the first season of
Speaker:Track 3: our podcast and essentially what these are
Speaker:Track 3: are film noir films that are less pessimistic
Speaker:Track 3: less hard-boiled and very socially conscious
Speaker:Track 3: so they're influenced by like basically they're influenced by italian neoliberal
Speaker:Track 3: uh neoliberalism sorry neorealism so they're they're essentially communist filmmakers
Speaker:Track 3: making socially conscious films influenced by italian neorealists who are also communist, uh,
Speaker:Track 3: filmmakers trying to shine a light on social issues.
Speaker:Track 3: So they're, they're not as hard boiled and pessimistic as they have.
Speaker:Track 3: They sort of have this hopeful message.
Speaker:Track 3: Uh, and, and there's certain, like I said, there's 13 of these.
Speaker:Track 3: We covered about half on our podcast and this is one we didn't cover on our podcast.
Speaker:Track 3: And it's, I mean, I'm a fan, I'm a big fan of the movie.
Speaker:Track 1: Now that you sort of put it that in perspective, it definitely, um,
Speaker:Track 1: It changes some of my thoughts on some of the themes underlying there.
Speaker:Track 1: I think you mentioned Bill.
Speaker:Track 1: I think you said, or maybe you didn't say it. Well, I'll get to that part maybe later.
Speaker:Track 1: But I'm curious what everyone else thought, Bill and Ward primarily.
Speaker:Track 1: I know you both had seen it for the first time. I also saw it for the first time.
Speaker:Track 1: But I can maybe go last and then we can talk more about some of the themes in it.
Speaker:Track 2: Yeah, I really enjoyed it. um yeah first
Speaker:Track 2: time watching a noir film first time in a long time watching a film this old
Speaker:Track 2: too but no i'd rather enjoyed it yeah no i kind of want to like hear more about
Speaker:Track 2: what you guys like actually have as like experts in this in this noir field
Speaker:Track 2: but uh yeah no i i did a little bit of research so i got some facts that i'll
Speaker:Track 2: throw in every once in a while yeah.
Speaker:Track 4: I really enjoyed it it was definitely you know definitely different than you
Speaker:Track 4: know you know i think we've you know I personally, or we covered recently,
Speaker:Track 4: you know, and it really took me back to like, you know,
Speaker:Track 4: Steinbeck and, you know, grapes of wrath and all that.
Speaker:Track 4: And, you know, it really made me think of all that stuff, but also,
Speaker:Track 4: you know, just, you know, like this time period. And it just,
Speaker:Track 4: it's, it just makes me always think of like, you know, how I say,
Speaker:Track 4: you know, like the more things don't change, the more they stay the same.
Speaker:Track 4: And it's like, here we are, you know, it's like, it just,
Speaker:Track 4: we think of the depression as like this like time so far removed from like us
Speaker:Track 4: and as if it's almost like a a fantasy time like a some like mythical era but
Speaker:Track 4: it's like you know watching this and like seeing how these people are approaching
Speaker:Track 4: things and it's just like oh you know like,
Speaker:Track 4: And for so many people in so many ways and really broadly, like almost nothing has changed.
Speaker:Track 3: Indeed. I agree. The movie, let me just say the movie I was trying to think
Speaker:Track 3: of a minute ago is The Night of the Hunter, which is another noir set in the
Speaker:Track 3: country, like in the south.
Speaker:Track 3: It's a fantastic movie, but it's a little bit later, 55. But anyway, sorry. Yeah.
Speaker:Track 1: One of the, one of like the, well, maybe I'll like sort of briefly lay out the
Speaker:Track 1: kind of the, the plot or at least kind of the opening to give people context
Speaker:Track 1: who may haven't seen this before.
Speaker:Track 1: And I definitely, I think we all would, would say you should take it, check it out.
Speaker:Track 1: But the, the film centers around.
Speaker:Track 1: Arthur Bowie Bowers, played by Fairleigh Greenger, the sort of the male lead.
Speaker:Track 1: And he and his two jailmates, T-Dub and One-Eye, or Chickama, all escape from prison.
Speaker:Track 1: And they're on the run, and they initially go to Chickama's,
Speaker:Track 1: you know, his brother's house,
Speaker:Track 1: and his niece is there, and there's sort of this decisions as to,
Speaker:Track 1: they run a service station, And they're trying to decide at this point sort
Speaker:Track 1: of what their next move is, whether they're going to potentially rob additional
Speaker:Track 1: banks, which is kind of what they're what they're planning to do.
Speaker:Track 1: And we also are introduced this time to the niece, which is who's played by
Speaker:Track 1: Kathy O'Donnell, who is Keechee or Catherine.
Speaker:Track 1: And we sort of slowly see the relationship between Bowie and Keechee develop
Speaker:Track 1: as the film goes forward.
Speaker:Track 1: And part of, I think what's maybe interesting that I think it's worth talking
Speaker:Track 1: about is we see early on, one of the first things we learn is that Bowie wants
Speaker:Track 1: to get a lawyer so that he can prove that he was wrongfully convicted.
Speaker:Track 1: And he even mentions, you know, the Supreme Court decision.
Speaker:Track 1: And again, as what you just said, Bill, things, you know, as you said,
Speaker:Track 1: things don't, things stay the same.
Speaker:Track 1: And I couldn't help but sort of think about that in the context of people being
Speaker:Track 1: wrongfully accused throughout time.
Speaker:Track 1: Though typically it's, you know, people of color that tends to happen to more
Speaker:Track 1: than the white persuasion.
Speaker:Track 1: But that's sort of the opening.
Speaker:Track 1: And then the rest of the film sort of...
Speaker:Track 1: Acts a bit like sort of the man and the woman, Bonnie and Clyde kind of couple
Speaker:Track 1: on the run genre. I feel like this might have been the, maybe the first ever
Speaker:Track 1: film that sort of had that theme, that thematic aspect to it.
Speaker:Track 1: But it was well before Bonnie and Clyde comes out 20 years after this.
Speaker:Track 1: And then I think maybe there's a few other films later.
Speaker:Track 1: Robert Altman, I think, also made a version of this film in the 70s.
Speaker:Track 1: It's all based on a book. So that's kind of the general layout.
Speaker:Track 1: But one of the things that I was thinking about with the two of them is that,
Speaker:Track 1: both Keechee and Bowie are young, they're in their early 20s,
Speaker:Track 1: and they're forced into this life of crime, but primarily not by choice. They're sort of,
Speaker:Track 1: Maybe they, you know, they're crime adjacent.
Speaker:Track 1: He's in prison. They break out. He breaks out. And he's sort of thrown into
Speaker:Track 1: this world, which is maybe why
Speaker:Track 1: kind of slips into that noir style where you're kind of against the man.
Speaker:Track 1: The cops are after you the whole time. so i don't know if you uh what do you
Speaker:Track 1: think jason as far as the if you had any more thoughts on sort of history there
Speaker:Track 1: and how it might play into the the two of them in this sort of on the run narrative
Speaker:Track 1: i know there's a lot more to it than that.
Speaker:Track 3: Yeah um you know all that's
Speaker:Track 3: stuff i wanted to get into myself and i
Speaker:Track 3: agree so it's it was adapted from a novel called
Speaker:Track 3: thieves like us from 1937 and
Speaker:Track 3: actually it was adapted earlier by fritz lang oh
Speaker:Track 3: you're right but that but that movie is not
Speaker:Track 3: as well known it's not as good it's not as
Speaker:Track 3: it hasn't been history hasn't looked
Speaker:Track 3: on that as so basically it is considered like
Speaker:Track 3: the sort of prototype for these couple on
Speaker:Track 3: the run films and there's been a bunch of them badlands you
Speaker:Track 3: know natural born killers these sort of things but unlike
Speaker:Track 3: all of those movies what's interesting about
Speaker:Track 3: this one as you said is they're not
Speaker:Track 3: quote-unquote bad people they're actually very sweet very gentle throughout
Speaker:Track 3: the film it's it's they're very and and they're not trying to cause harm but
Speaker:Track 3: they just fell into this really bad situation and and that's what makes it radical,
Speaker:Track 3: honestly. That's what makes it very different.
Speaker:Track 3: Because, you know, listeners may or may not know about this,
Speaker:Track 3: but at the time, there was a thing called the Hayes Code of Production, H-A-Y-S.
Speaker:Track 3: And you could not make a film...
Speaker:Track 3: Basically, until about 1960, you couldn't make a film that portrayed the criminals as the good guys.
Speaker:Track 3: And this film basically does that. It really pushes hard against the code of production.
Speaker:Track 3: You know, they censored American movies all the time. We think that that's something
Speaker:Track 3: that just happens overseas or something. They censored American movies all the time.
Speaker:Track 3: Somehow, this one wasn't censored. But you're rooting for this young couple.
Speaker:Track 3: There's no way to not root for them because they're so
Speaker:Track 3: gentle and so it invites the viewer to
Speaker:Track 3: think oh capitalism forces us
Speaker:Track 3: into desperate situations and sometimes people
Speaker:Track 3: commit quote-unquote property crimes who just almost don't have any other option
Speaker:Track 3: you know and that's a bold thing to do in 1948 it was really until the bonnie
Speaker:Track 3: and clyde came out in the late 60s so Because that became common to do after
Speaker:Track 3: Bonnie and Clyde, but not back then.
Speaker:Track 3: It was like literally the first movie that pushed that hard against that taboo.
Speaker:Track 2: Yeah, the only thing the Hays Code touched on this movie was the corrupt Justice
Speaker:Track 2: of Peace that was doing the weddings at night. It was originally supposed to be a judge.
Speaker:Track 2: So the fact that that's all that they touched was like, oh, tone it down on
Speaker:Track 2: the judge. But yeah, you can keep the criminals being good guys.
Speaker:Track 2: It was actually really surprising for the time.
Speaker:Track 3: Interesting. I didn't know that. Yeah.
Speaker:Track 4: To even call them criminals seems a stretch.
Speaker:Track 4: Like it really makes you question Hays Code notwithstanding,
Speaker:Track 4: you know, if even if we, you know,
Speaker:Track 4: but just the very nature of the characters, the way they're presented,
Speaker:Track 4: it makes you automatically question not just whether they're criminals,
Speaker:Track 4: but the, the, the application of that word to certain individuals.
Speaker:Track 4: It's like, what, first of all, what makes Kichi a criminal, right?
Speaker:Track 4: Like she, what does she do?
Speaker:Track 4: Like she doesn't do anything, you know, like she literally does not participate
Speaker:Track 4: in any crime other than aiding and abetting.
Speaker:Track 4: Yeah. Like that's, that's the, that's the best you can get. And really like
Speaker:Track 4: aiding and abetting, like she's
Speaker:Track 4: like, it's not even like, I guess in the beginning, which is like helping.
Speaker:Track 2: She's actively rehabilitating a criminal that the society could not productively rehabilitate.
Speaker:Track 4: Yeah yeah she's literally doing a better job like like what how is she a criminal
Speaker:Track 4: and like and buoy like it is so
Speaker:Track 4: clear that like he is a victim of the circumstances and continually like,
Speaker:Track 4: like pushes back like early on he's like you know if you need a third man i'm
Speaker:Track 4: there and then like the moment he has the opportunity he's like you know i'm
Speaker:Track 4: out like just no no i'm good like the moment, like all that, like you could,
Speaker:Track 4: whether it was youthful bravado or not, I think is debatable, but,
Speaker:Track 4: In the end, that's the way it comes off, and it's clear that he is not in this
Speaker:Track 4: for a life of crime. He's not interested in a life of crime.
Speaker:Track 4: T-Dub and Chickamaw, they're down for it.
Speaker:Track 4: That's their life, 100%.
Speaker:Track 3: Yeah, those guys are clearly the bad guys, right? We're not rooting for them.
Speaker:Track 3: They have no moral code, and he does. You could imagine him in another setting.
Speaker:Track 3: Well, basically what we know is he grew, he got,
Speaker:Track 3: He was a carnival worker as a child. He was a child worker in the carnival and
Speaker:Track 3: got swept up, again, a victim of circumstances, when a murder happened and took the fall, basically.
Speaker:Track 3: So, like, he's had a tough life from the moment he was born, basically.
Speaker:Track 3: We find out that his mother ran off with a man who murdered his own father, that sort of thing.
Speaker:Track 3: So he's had this terrible life and his, you know, his life was never going to
Speaker:Track 3: be anything else unless some miracle happened.
Speaker:Track 3: And that's, again, one of these socially conscious message pictures,
Speaker:Track 3: which is what they used to call them.
Speaker:Track 3: In the 30s, there were a lot of these message pictures. And by the 40s,
Speaker:Track 3: they kind of died away. And this group of film gris films is kind of the exception to the rule.
Speaker:Track 1: We also learned that Keechee's mother also had run away.
Speaker:Track 1: One of the notes that I put down was sort of just the relationship or the concept
Speaker:Track 1: of the nuclear family I thought was very fascinating because you have,
Speaker:Track 1: as you said, Jason, the Bui's family sort of, you know, he's brought into this carnival work.
Speaker:Track 1: His mother runs away with his father who's murdered.
Speaker:Track 1: Kichi's mother has sort of gone away and they have this odd relationship with
Speaker:Track 1: one of the brothers is still in prison and one of them is, you know,
Speaker:Track 1: home and has this daughter Kichi.
Speaker:Track 1: And it's all like they don't seem to understand the idea of where they're trying
Speaker:Track 1: to understand the idea of some kind of, I don't know, patriarchal family where the, you know,
Speaker:Track 1: where the Kishima and the other guy are sort of in T-dub or, you know,
Speaker:Track 1: trying to provide in quotes for them in the only way they know how, which is to rob banks.
Speaker:Track 1: And Bowie just is along for the ride, unfortunately.
Speaker:Track 4: I genuinely would actually push back on like the fact that like T-Dub and or one of the,
Speaker:Track 4: chicken it's chickama or one eye and t-dub i
Speaker:Track 4: was they had basically there's three names for
Speaker:Track 4: two guys it's like it's a lot yeah
Speaker:Track 4: we have an extra name but like one
Speaker:Track 4: eye and t-dub like i would push back
Speaker:Track 4: on the idea that they're like really the bad
Speaker:Track 4: guys like you know
Speaker:Track 4: it's like i it's not
Speaker:Track 4: that clear-cut and like i think one
Speaker:Track 4: eye if we were gonna if we're gonna point to somebody who's like
Speaker:Track 4: like 100 like not
Speaker:Track 4: like not for one eye
Speaker:Track 4: is clearly in it for the game like he
Speaker:Track 4: is not he's the closest thing to like a bad person i would say and like it felt
Speaker:Track 4: to me like t-dub really did feel like kind of like a man out of time who was
Speaker:Track 4: incapable of living in this new environment and providing for the people that he cared about.
Speaker:Track 4: And he did what he could and what he knew how to do. And it just so happens that, you know.
Speaker:Track 4: If he, if he was alive, you know, like 200 years earlier, he would probably
Speaker:Track 4: would have been like, you know, a respected, you know, like warrior raiding
Speaker:Track 4: village, you know, like it's almost like it's a, it's a completely different like mentality.
Speaker:Track 4: And like, he still wants to, but there's this circumstances that they don't
Speaker:Track 4: provide, you know, provide for that.
Speaker:Track 4: Whereas what I does seem like more of just a general piece of shit in a low
Speaker:Track 4: life who does not respect anybody.
Speaker:Track 3: Can i can i agree with you i guess what motivated me to put that in to say i
Speaker:Track 3: i think it's more nuanced than i had put it i think what i they have a code of,
Speaker:Track 3: a criminal code of honor so they
Speaker:Track 3: have each other's back but but also like what
Speaker:Track 3: made me think that is like like the the
Speaker:Track 3: real moral center of the film is this young
Speaker:Track 3: couple and and because um bowie
Speaker:Track 3: wants to get out he's like i'm not doing another job for you guys and he and
Speaker:Track 3: t-bub just starts or t-dub starts slapping him in the face he's like you don't
Speaker:Track 3: have a choice and so like and so like but this is like street life right this
Speaker:Track 3: is this street code and sort of thing this is a criminal code,
Speaker:Track 3: where once you're in, you don't really get to get out.
Speaker:Track 3: And so you can't really...
Speaker:Track 3: I don't know, a bourgeois moral code against that. But nevertheless.
Speaker:Track 1: We don't know how long they're in prison. Did they say how long they've been
Speaker:Track 1: there? I know that Bowie had been for seven years.
Speaker:Track 1: Yeah, I don't know if they said the other ones. But presumably they've been
Speaker:Track 1: in there for some time if they become friendly enough with him.
Speaker:Track 1: And clearly it seems like they picked him as the person they would break out
Speaker:Track 1: with because he could be assistance or help them.
Speaker:Track 1: And they're a bit older and he can maybe be the driveway car,
Speaker:Track 1: which he ends up being later on or is more savvy as a kid.
Speaker:Track 1: One of the funny things that happens throughout it is that they get so mad,
Speaker:Track 1: both Chickama and T-Dub, that,
Speaker:Track 1: Bowie is getting all the quote-unquote like credit in the
Speaker:Track 1: newspaper you know they call him you know the kid and it I just found that it's
Speaker:Track 1: extremely funny because the guy who's trying to get out and be you know anonymous
Speaker:Track 1: and just sort of blend in and just have a you know have a happily ever after
Speaker:Track 1: is the one that's getting all the face time in the paper and it's just you know God sucks.
Speaker:Track 4: Yeah, it really did suck. I felt bad for him.
Speaker:Track 3: Well, that's another thing that makes this movie kind of radical or like critical
Speaker:Track 3: of the status quo is it has a strong condemnation of yellow journalism.
Speaker:Track 3: And that's another feature of a lot of these film grief films where they're
Speaker:Track 3: showing how the newspapers will kind of make things up and sensationalize crime
Speaker:Track 3: to sell papers because these newspapers are businesses. So they have to sell papers.
Speaker:Track 3: So they have this code of if it bleeds, it leads. And they, you know,
Speaker:Track 3: they exaggerate things because it'll sell papers.
Speaker:Track 3: And that's very clearly identified in a few places in this film.
Speaker:Track 1: Yeah, they do several times talk about that. The way that, yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker:Track 1: The ultimate extreme of that is the one movie you mentioned,
Speaker:Track 1: which is Natural Born Killers, which is the people on the run with the absolute
Speaker:Track 1: extreme sensationalization of it.
Speaker:Track 1: Sensationalism sensationalism yes thank you bill uh of of
Speaker:Track 1: uh of the media and the way that they cover it and it's interesting
Speaker:Track 1: that this comes at you know
Speaker:Track 1: again in 1948 and they're doing these kinds of
Speaker:Track 1: things it's you can see where nicholas
Speaker:Track 1: ray the director is making doing things that
Speaker:Track 1: you know maybe he just was doing as much
Speaker:Track 1: as he could get away with and you know and if he got away with it
Speaker:Track 1: he would and if he didn't he wouldn't and you know
Speaker:Track 1: as you said word the only thing they change was you know the the
Speaker:Track 1: person who does the marriage and uh you're left with everything else and the
Speaker:Track 1: uh the like the relationship too between kichi and buoy like they after the
Speaker:Track 1: last robbery they you know they they're on the run now and he has a whole sack
Speaker:Track 1: of money and he feel like they can just sort of be together and what,
Speaker:Track 1: was also they they refer i think well kichi
Speaker:Track 1: refers to buoy as a jailbait and i think later one of them might refer
Speaker:Track 1: to buoy as the same thing but they're like these young kids
Speaker:Track 1: who don't even really understand i think the
Speaker:Track 1: idea of love it's almost like they've never experienced love in
Speaker:Track 1: their life and they almost don't know what to do
Speaker:Track 1: in terms of how to be together and
Speaker:Track 1: it seems like the money was the what they're trying at least what buoy is trying
Speaker:Track 1: to use as i have all this money you know what can i buy you and there's always
Speaker:Track 1: these kind of exchanges where like oh like do you want me do you want to buy
Speaker:Track 1: this for me or do you want to be with me and it's just this uh was almost both
Speaker:Track 1: sad and heartwarming at the same time yeah.
Speaker:Track 4: Sad is the term i.
Speaker:Track 1: Was yeah.
Speaker:Track 3: Yeah i mean it's it's innocent.
Speaker:Track 1: Yeah innocence a great one yeah and.
Speaker:Track 3: I mean it's shakespearean in its tragedy dimension i mean it's like romeo and
Speaker:Track 3: juliet kind of thing like where these two innocents are love and they it's them
Speaker:Track 3: versus the world kind of thing uh yeah.
Speaker:Track 1: Yeah you really yeah i mean you do feel feel sorry for
Speaker:Track 1: them but you do at the same time you see
Speaker:Track 1: their i mean again you mentioned
Speaker:Track 1: at the beginning just like a lot of these noirs are filmed at night this film
Speaker:Track 1: is literally called they live by night because primarily all the
Speaker:Track 1: traveling they're doing is at night to you know stay away from the cops and
Speaker:Track 1: everything and they don't even really go out very much they you know stick to
Speaker:Track 1: little motels and little i don't know what you would call those kind of places
Speaker:Track 1: uh like motorhome cabins yeah like in the you know in the sticks and um,
Speaker:Track 1: I don't know where I was going with that, but yeah, and we should be also,
Speaker:Track 1: they end up getting married at this, as you alluded to, is this place that's a $20 wedding.
Speaker:Track 1: Was it in, which state was it? Was it in Mississippi? No, it was before they were in Mississippi.
Speaker:Track 3: It's in Texas, I think.
Speaker:Track 1: Okay, because they start in Texas, right? Yeah, and they get married at this
Speaker:Track 1: $20 place, and I found the- It's funny, that part.
Speaker:Track 1: Very funny. It's hilarious. and also just the guy who does the ceremony and
Speaker:Track 1: then is you know then sells them this car in cash and he's like oh yeah should
Speaker:Track 1: i call him call the guy who has the car and it's it seemed to me that this guy
Speaker:Track 1: was doing things under the table more regularly i don't know if that was the implication.
Speaker:Track 2: Oh yeah definitely you can get he can give you a 20 wedding and call up a stolen
Speaker:Track 2: car to get delivered for you.
Speaker:Track 1: That night and.
Speaker:Track 4: He knew people in and he pegged them immediately on the run he's like, you want to go to Mexico?
Speaker:Track 4: I got friends in Mexico. I can get you to Mexico.
Speaker:Track 4: Immediately was like, you guys want to jump the border, right?
Speaker:Track 4: You want to, you want to go to Mexico?
Speaker:Track 2: I can make that happen.
Speaker:Track 4: Yeah.
Speaker:Track 2: I do it like all the time.
Speaker:Track 4: He like literally pulls out like a brochure of people that get people across the border.
Speaker:Track 4: He's like, listen, I got, I got a book of people to get you across there.
Speaker:Track 4: Okay. And then he sells in the car.
Speaker:Track 2: Yeah.
Speaker:Track 3: And he just at the last second tax on $500 more.
Speaker:Track 4: Yeah.
Speaker:Track 3: And that's the finder's fee and they go for it. That's how naive they are.
Speaker:Track 4: Which, okay. Did anybody else look up what that money, what the cost was?
Speaker:Track 3: Okay.
Speaker:Track 4: Today. Okay. I thought he said $3,700 for the car.
Speaker:Track 1: I think it was less.
Speaker:Track 3: I think he said $2,700.
Speaker:Track 4: My wife, Jackie, said I misheard it. It was $2,700.
Speaker:Track 4: Okay. regardless okay so if it's 2700 that is 36 631 dollars today that is mind-blowing
Speaker:Track 4: like first of all especially.
Speaker:Track 2: From bowie who like earlier when they needed to buy a used car for 1500.
Speaker:Track 4: Was like what the fuck why are.
Speaker:Track 2: We paying that much for a car.
Speaker:Track 4: This is the depression how much money like despite so that tells you two things
Speaker:Track 4: first of all how bad things were how but also how much money they had stolen
Speaker:Track 4: because now all of a sudden he's like,
Speaker:Track 4: the equivalent of 36 grand for what we can suspect is not a great car.
Speaker:Track 4: Like they're not like, you know, it's not, he didn't roll up on like,
Speaker:Track 4: you know, the, you know, the Chrysler dealership was like, Hey,
Speaker:Track 4: you want this brand new Mercedes, you know, brand new car, you know, brand new car.
Speaker:Track 4: No, no. He's like, I got this, uh, this, this, uh.
Speaker:Track 1: It's a Nissan Altima.
Speaker:Track 4: Yeah. I got this, uh, convertible, uh, you know, just, we, we happened to come
Speaker:Track 4: buy it. Uh, it's out back.
Speaker:Track 4: Yeah. The mechanic down the road's got it. You want it? $3,600, $2,700.
Speaker:Track 4: And he's just like, okay. And like you said, an extra $100, $500?
Speaker:Track 4: No problem. That's wild.
Speaker:Track 3: Yeah, I think it points to how naive he is.
Speaker:Track 3: He doesn't even know the value of a dollar, how desperate they are.
Speaker:Track 3: He's willing to do anything.
Speaker:Track 3: And like you said, I mean, they stole a lot of money.
Speaker:Track 3: It was a big heist. One of the funny parts of that scene So it's $30 For a wedding
Speaker:Track 3: where they tape it They actually have a,
Speaker:Track 3: 8mm or whatever camera And they'll sing a song And play piano and so forth,
Speaker:Track 3: And it's the guy Who runs the place, his sister And her husband,
Speaker:Track 3: his brother-in-law They come out and he's about to start Rolling the camera and he waves him off,
Speaker:Track 3: And then he picks up His microphone and he waves him off again And then the wife sits down,
Speaker:Track 3: hits one note and then that guy waves off his wife.
Speaker:Track 3: No, they got the $20 package, not the $30 package. It's just the comic timing is hilarious.
Speaker:Track 4: It is really funny. And it's like, what is even better?
Speaker:Track 4: At the end, when the brother-in-law goes to kiss her and he goes,
Speaker:Track 4: you have a cold, remember?
Speaker:Track 4: And he goes, oh yeah.
Speaker:Track 2: Yeah. After making sure that he's like, you got to tip the witnesses.
Speaker:Track 4: Yeah. like he's like tip them not even like a suggestion like tip them ten dollars
Speaker:Track 4: we just like like tip them ten dollars now.
Speaker:Track 1: I think he clocked them when they are asked to sign the registry with their
Speaker:Track 1: names and they're very apprehensive and he's like oh these guys aren't writing
Speaker:Track 1: real names in this in this book here you know i can maybe sell them i think
Speaker:Track 1: it's then he's like okay well,
Speaker:Track 1: once they get married you know they might need some of
Speaker:Track 1: my quote-unquote services here that i can provide them
Speaker:Track 1: on the side and let me also add how many cars did they go through in this movie
Speaker:Track 1: like 15 or five i know 15 is too many but like there's a lot of cars they burn
Speaker:Track 1: one one he crashes the one they get away with the i think like maybe five or
Speaker:Track 1: six but it's a lot of cars and this time one.
Speaker:Track 3: Little fact is this was the first film that used a helicopter to film aerial
Speaker:Track 3: shots in hollywood by a major studio so there were a lot of interesting shots from above,
Speaker:Track 3: and we take that for granted now but this was 1948 and those are really cool shots i.
Speaker:Track 4: Remember seeing that i was like huh this seems like really kind of like crazy
Speaker:Track 4: for this time period i was like when.
Speaker:Track 3: They showed.
Speaker:Track 4: That first like oh.
Speaker:Track 2: Yeah and it's like nicholas ray's first uh attempt as like a film director and
Speaker:Track 2: that was his first shot like the opening helicopter that's wild scene that was like his first shot.
Speaker:Track 1: So there were actually five cars and there's actually a website that lists specifically
Speaker:Track 1: the models of each of them, which is pretty crazy.
Speaker:Track 1: In addition to all the side cars that are just shown sort of in the,
Speaker:Track 1: in the background of the film.
Speaker:Track 1: So the Buick Roadmaster, a Cadillac series 60, Cadillac series 62 convertible.
Speaker:Track 1: And then later they have a Plymouth special deluxe and what's the last one?
Speaker:Track 1: A Ford model a most of the cars were from the late thirties, early forties.
Speaker:Track 3: Yeah, I guess it was set in the time that it was written, so about 10 years earlier.
Speaker:Track 1: Right, I forgot that the, I think you said, Ward, that the film was made and
Speaker:Track 1: not released for a couple years. Howard Hughes, like, wouldn't release it?
Speaker:Track 2: Yeah, because Howard Hughes bought the parent company, the RKO Productions,
Speaker:Track 2: and then shelved it, fired a bunch of communists, and then watched the film
Speaker:Track 2: and was like, I don't see anything in it, and then shelved it for two years.
Speaker:Track 2: And then he finally rushed it out to theaters. like it got released internationally
Speaker:Track 2: under a different title twisted road um,
Speaker:Track 2: and um but then it got really rushed out by howard hughes when mgm was gonna
Speaker:Track 2: release a noir film starring um farley granger and kathy o'donnell um side street.
Speaker:Track 3: I haven't seen that one it's.
Speaker:Track 1: Kind of crazy.
Speaker:Track 3: So howard hughes uh is
Speaker:Track 3: a real piece of work i mean so so howard hughes you guys might know this but
Speaker:Track 3: listeners might not he had this script that he would use to test whether people
Speaker:Track 3: were communist it was a litmus test and if people would want to make the movie then,
Speaker:Track 3: then they were not a communist and if they didn't want to make it then they
Speaker:Track 3: were and the movie was called i married a communist and we actually covered it on our podcast uh the.
Speaker:Track 1: Like that whole story of him maybe not necessarily the communist part but the
Speaker:Track 1: you know the head of a studio who is,
Speaker:Track 1: shelving films and then rushing them out and not promoting them and then them
Speaker:Track 1: doing bad and then saying oh that's see no one liked that movie is like literally
Speaker:Track 1: something that would happen in 2026 and does still happen.
Speaker:Track 3: Not just.
Speaker:Track 1: Could it does still happen.
Speaker:Track 3: And he was he was personally like tampering with
Speaker:Track 3: the movies and editing them and producing them and
Speaker:Track 3: probably reworking scripts and i mean
Speaker:Track 3: he was involved all in every aspect of some of these movies uh but one of the
Speaker:Track 3: one of the people who got ran off from that studio was joseph losi and just
Speaker:Track 3: a fun fact is nicholas ray and losi grew up together in the same town, La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Speaker:Track 3: Both ended up directors, both ended up.
Speaker:Track 3: Communist Party. I don't know if they were fellow travelers or members of the
Speaker:Track 3: Communist Party, but sympathetic, part of that circle.
Speaker:Track 3: And then, you know, HUAC comes around, the House of American Activities Committee
Speaker:Track 3: in the late 40s, around this time, and starts harassing everybody in Hollywood
Speaker:Track 3: and making people testify.
Speaker:Track 3: And many several of those people
Speaker:Track 3: worked for rko and some of them went to prison the hollywood 10
Speaker:Track 3: dalton trumbo and several others
Speaker:Track 3: demit um what's his
Speaker:Track 3: name demitrick um anyway um
Speaker:Track 3: several of those people had worked or um edward
Speaker:Track 3: demitrick anyway they worked for um rko refused to testify and went to prison
Speaker:Track 3: um for a year and dalton trumbo by the way wrote another movie in this in this
Speaker:Track 3: genre called gun crazy he wrote it under a fake name,
Speaker:Track 3: while he was blacklisted and it's fascinating movie it's actually really fun
Speaker:Track 3: and it's a couple in the run kind of movie um.
Speaker:Track 1: But anyway the only other the only movie i think on this podcast that from a
Speaker:Track 1: while back that was from rko we did cover citizens cane or citizen cane and
Speaker:Track 1: we talked a lot about the sort of history more on the sort of like the history
Speaker:Track 1: of orson wells but so i won't And that's kind of unrelated to this,
Speaker:Track 1: but just it reminded me because of the RKO aspect.
Speaker:Track 1: And a lot of the history with him was them meeting at these different,
Speaker:Track 1: you know, theaters and groups that were communist or communist adjacent.
Speaker:Track 1: So it wouldn't surprise me if those two knew each other from that sort of context.
Speaker:Track 1: I mean, it seems likely and maybe it's not publicized.
Speaker:Track 3: Sure. Yeah. It was a small scene, actually.
Speaker:Track 3: It was, I mean, I think all these people knew each other, you know,
Speaker:Track 3: and that little milieu, you know, like Jules Dassen was one of the more famous ones.
Speaker:Track 3: And his movie Night in the City, which is one of my favorite noirs,
Speaker:Track 3: it's also on that film Gris list.
Speaker:Track 3: He some interviewer asked him hey so was it a hotbed of communists back then
Speaker:Track 3: he's like no i would say it was a very lukewarm uh or like a cold bed he's like
Speaker:Track 3: there weren't that many of us actually uh so they all knew each other yeah.
Speaker:Track 4: The would have been better if it was a hotbed right i know.
Speaker:Track 3: Yeah i mean there were a lot in in the city but in hollywood proper among those
Speaker:Track 3: like well-known there are a lot of screenwriters for some reason there weren't
Speaker:Track 3: that many directors like maybe 10 or something yeah.
Speaker:Track 4: The screenwriters are poorer.
Speaker:Track 3: Yeah.
Speaker:Track 1: Yeah.
Speaker:Track 3: Yeah.
Speaker:Track 1: Some of the other like scenes that are one of the other scenes that I thought
Speaker:Track 1: it wasn't necessarily funny, but one that stuck out to me.
Speaker:Track 1: Well, there's well, maybe there's a couple when they're once they're Keechee
Speaker:Track 1: and Bowie are sort of on the run.
Speaker:Track 1: They go to several cabins, as you said, and there's lots of really funny interactions
Speaker:Track 1: and not just in this movie.
Speaker:Track 1: Maybe it just was more of a thing in films in this period of time in the 40s
Speaker:Track 1: where these kind of places seemed more common to be shown.
Speaker:Track 1: And the interactions with the people who sort of run
Speaker:Track 1: the ran the the place like
Speaker:Track 1: with the little kid and the the father and and they
Speaker:Track 1: juxtapose this too with the cops you know
Speaker:Track 1: saying you know eventually they're gonna be caught because every
Speaker:Track 1: time they hear a knock at the door you know they're gonna jump and you
Speaker:Track 1: and then they go back and the you know the door knocks and the little kids bringing
Speaker:Track 1: in their sheets or something i just like those little little bits in there that
Speaker:Track 1: sort of add to the the feeling and i think it happened one night which i just
Speaker:Track 1: watched recently also has a bunch of scenes in one of those kind of cabins what.
Speaker:Track 4: Stood out to me like for that like around
Speaker:Track 4: that time is and this goes back to like the whole like you know presentation
Speaker:Track 4: of like these people and like how we are consistently in the real world you
Speaker:Track 4: know bombarded with you know propaganda that is, you know,
Speaker:Track 4: meant to dehumanize anybody that commits a crime and to make it out as if because
Speaker:Track 4: someone commits a crime, you know,
Speaker:Track 4: they are inherently an evil person.
Speaker:Track 4: And when you watch this and, and because it is a movie and it's even more so
Speaker:Track 4: nowadays, we have a lot more media where people.
Speaker:Track 4: You know, the people, um, maybe, you know, quote unquote criminals and they
Speaker:Track 4: are presented as like, you know, good people, you know, or people trying to live their lives.
Speaker:Track 4: But this, especially for the time, but just even not for the time, it makes it so clear.
Speaker:Track 4: It's like, they just want a roof over their head, a bed to lay in,
Speaker:Track 4: you know, they just want shelter and food and like peace.
Speaker:Track 4: That's it. That's all they want. And like, you know, they want to go out and
Speaker:Track 4: have a nice time together and like live life. That's all they want.
Speaker:Track 4: And it's like, it very much is, it's like, these people are victims of the material conditions.
Speaker:Track 4: And in reality, the only, the only thing, even when they have gotten,
Speaker:Track 4: you know, they've committed a crime to get the material, you know,
Speaker:Track 4: goods to do this, they just want to rent a place and live. That's it.
Speaker:Track 4: That's what they want to do.
Speaker:Track 3: That's all. Agreed. That's what makes this socially conscious because it's,
Speaker:Track 3: it's basically saying that they can't do that without committing crime.
Speaker:Track 3: And that's a condemnation of capitalism, essentially.
Speaker:Track 3: Um, and, you know, it's, there's another movie in this vein from this era called Try and Get Me.
Speaker:Track 3: Uh, it's also titled The Sound of Fury has two titles.
Speaker:Track 3: And it's very much the same kind of story. This guy is really just wants to
Speaker:Track 3: live like a comfortable life.
Speaker:Track 3: Middle-class-ish life and he's forced into crime and it's almost like shocking
Speaker:Track 3: that it happens and these kind of that's they were very much trying to do that
Speaker:Track 3: they would say yeah we're trying to do this yeah.
Speaker:Track 1: They like set up the christmas tree getting gifts they just want to live sort
Speaker:Track 1: of this quote-unquote domestic life and they you know what is it uh not t-dub
Speaker:Track 1: uh chickamaul like Like, you know,
Speaker:Track 1: while Keechee's away, he shows up at this cabin where they're staying and it
Speaker:Track 1: says, like, you need to come back and do another job.
Speaker:Track 1: He's like, you know, he keeps trying to get out of this life.
Speaker:Track 1: He's trying to live his life. He's Zidbill and he just he can't be left alone
Speaker:Track 1: by the system that's bringing him back in to commit crime because these other
Speaker:Track 1: people also want that for themselves. And they're not even close to getting it either.
Speaker:Track 2: That scene was so great when Chickama comes in. and
Speaker:Track 2: like he doesn't even need to get violent with bowie bowie he just like starts
Speaker:Track 2: breaking the fucking christmas ornaments and like oh it's just so great it's
Speaker:Track 2: just like oh what hope you had that you're just gonna live a normal life yeah
Speaker:Track 2: no i'm gonna come i'm coming here to fuck that up get in the fucking car we're doing this job i.
Speaker:Track 1: Do want how did they and i think at some point they mentioned that the two of
Speaker:Track 1: them had sort of blown through all of the money because they all presumably
Speaker:Track 1: had like an equal share of the money or maybe even they might have even got
Speaker:Track 1: less than buoy and buoy's He's got car money. He's got all this money to spend.
Speaker:Track 2: Now, if anything, they probably took more than him.
Speaker:Track 1: Right. So what did they do with all that money?
Speaker:Track 2: He just didn't spend it on anything.
Speaker:Track 3: Well, one of them. Yeah, he said he blew it on. He implied that he lost at gambling.
Speaker:Track 1: Okay, I missed that.
Speaker:Track 3: And the other guy bought a couple of hotels.
Speaker:Track 1: Right.
Speaker:Track 3: Or one hotel. Yeah, which we see at the end. And that's where they end up.
Speaker:Track 3: Yeah, at the end, that's where. T-Dub bought a hotel for $1.
Speaker:Track 3: That woman who is, is that his sister or just his sister-in-law, right, right.
Speaker:Track 4: Yeah, the sister-in-law, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Track 3: Yeah, because the brother is in jail.
Speaker:Track 4: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Track 3: Right, yeah. So he buys a hotel, spends all his money, and the other guy blows it gambling.
Speaker:Track 3: And of course, he would be the one that blows it gambling because he's a guy who's full of vice.
Speaker:Track 3: That's what we're trying to, that's what's being presented is this guy has vice
Speaker:Track 3: running through his veins.
Speaker:Track 1: And each is a little drunk. Yeah.
Speaker:Track 3: Right, yeah.
Speaker:Track 1: And they each die because, I mean, not just because they're,
Speaker:Track 1: you know, of what they're doing. I think that Chickama is killed in a liquor
Speaker:Track 1: store robbery and T-Dub, I'm trying to remember how he dies.
Speaker:Track 3: During another heist.
Speaker:Track 1: Another heist, yeah.
Speaker:Track 2: Yeah.
Speaker:Track 1: So they both die. And, and part of it too, which is even more again,
Speaker:Track 1: like against their ability to try and live their lives is at some point they
Speaker:Track 1: each, they buy the car, Bowie buys that car and he's getting, you know,
Speaker:Track 1: tailgated by a Chickama and he ends up crashing the car and Chickama shoots the cop.
Speaker:Track 1: The gun is left on the scene and it has Bowie's fingerprints on it.
Speaker:Track 1: So he's not even the perpetrator of anything. He just crashed his car.
Speaker:Track 1: I mean, you know, he did grab a bank but in that moment he hadn't done anything
Speaker:Track 1: and he he gets the fingerprints and just nothing nothing going right yeah.
Speaker:Track 4: Nothing goes right for that kid.
Speaker:Track 3: The only thing he had the only crime he commits and this is a crime of course
Speaker:Track 3: but the the worst crime that he could commits is being getaway driver for those guys he's accessory.
Speaker:Track 1: To robbery he wouldn't he wasn't even.
Speaker:Track 3: Yeah the.
Speaker:Track 1: Robbery you know.
Speaker:Track 3: But he broke out of prison which is a crime but he was probably innocent,
Speaker:Track 3: so he's trying to save his own skin from the outside.
Speaker:Track 3: Of course, that idea goes out the window, as you said earlier.
Speaker:Track 1: Maybe this is a stupid question, but at the beginning, when he's talking with
Speaker:Track 1: Kichi about where I mentioned there's another person that was able to get off
Speaker:Track 1: from their murder, is it just assumed that they just,
Speaker:Track 1: the wrong person in this situation and that person ended up getting off the
Speaker:Track 1: actual murder and he just gets stuck in prison is that the insinuation i figure i think so.
Speaker:Track 4: See i read it as if and like i felt like he implied that he did kill that person
Speaker:Track 4: and it's not that it's not that he was innocent it's so much as that like just
Speaker:Track 4: like do justice was like justice was not served,
Speaker:Track 4: that his case was railroaded, that it's not that he didn't do it,
Speaker:Track 4: but that the proper, like the proper course was not followed, that he,
Speaker:Track 4: that it was railroaded through the system and he was not given,
Speaker:Track 4: you know, basically like, you know, uh,
Speaker:Track 4: access to like, you know, defense, like legal rights.
Speaker:Track 4: So basically all his legal rights were denied. even if
Speaker:Track 4: he did do it he still has the
Speaker:Track 4: right to those things even if he and
Speaker:Track 4: he acknowledged I felt like he acknowledged it's
Speaker:Track 4: like I did do it but or that he was possibly like an accessory but that like
Speaker:Track 4: basically that like he was not given proper access to like his rights and that
Speaker:Track 4: was the issue which is in and of itself I think actually a more like.
Speaker:Track 4: That is a stronger argument that, that if you're making this,
Speaker:Track 4: this claim within this film that you are not even saying that, like, you know,
Speaker:Track 4: it's, it's the claim that even that everybody, even a murderer is.
Speaker:Track 4: Deserves proper, like, you know, due justice, that it doesn't matter.
Speaker:Track 4: You, we have committed to serve, you know, we have stated that we've committed
Speaker:Track 4: that this people have rights and it doesn't matter what they did.
Speaker:Track 4: They deserve those rights. And that's the point.
Speaker:Track 4: And like, to me, that's like an even stronger statement.
Speaker:Track 1: I was just looking in 1940. So this movie came out in 48, but it was written
Speaker:Track 1: earlier and he had been in prison for about seven years.
Speaker:Track 1: In 1940, there is the Chambers versus Florida, which said that convictions of
Speaker:Track 1: murder obtained in the state by use of course can coerced confessions are void
Speaker:Track 1: under the 14th amendment.
Speaker:Track 1: So perhaps he was coerced into admitting something that maybe he did,
Speaker:Track 1: but they forced him to admit to it.
Speaker:Track 1: And then he gets, you know, pushed through the system and maybe,
Speaker:Track 1: maybe that was the thing he was referring to. I don't know.
Speaker:Track 3: Yeah. And it's, it's not exactly, I'd have to go back and see the scene. I, you may be right.
Speaker:Track 3: Um, Bill, I don't know. Um, but the bottom line is he was a child.
Speaker:Track 4: Yeah. So there is that. Yeah. He was a child.
Speaker:Track 1: 16 years old.
Speaker:Track 3: So he may have been coerced into it. He may have been taking the fall or he
Speaker:Track 3: may have just done it, but he was a child and he served seven years in a pretty serious maximum.
Speaker:Track 3: Well, they said he had life. They're described as three lifers.
Speaker:Track 3: So he got life in prison as a child. And that happens. That happens in Angola
Speaker:Track 3: and Louisiana. I'm pretty sure there's some lifers in there that have been there
Speaker:Track 3: 40 or 50 years who were children when they committed this crime and they're never getting out.
Speaker:Track 3: But it's it's an indictment of the justice system, the prison system to these harsh sentences.
Speaker:Track 4: Absolutely. Yeah, that is. Yeah, that that is, you know, I did not.
Speaker:Track 4: But yeah, you're totally right. Like that is the one thing. It's like,
Speaker:Track 4: yeah, he was a kid, like 100 percent. Like he was a child.
Speaker:Track 4: If we ignore everything else, he was a child.
Speaker:Track 3: And he was very sweet,
Speaker:Track 3: young adult so so he
Speaker:Track 3: had if he had been this hardened teenager which it doesn't seem like he was
Speaker:Track 3: he was clearly rehabilitated he was naive i mean he was he was easy to coerce
Speaker:Track 3: that's what's shown throughout he's naive and and people walk all over him for that reason somehow.
Speaker:Track 4: I doubt that And he somehow I doubt he was a hardened criminal at 16.
Speaker:Track 1: Probably not.
Speaker:Track 3: No, I think if anything, he was coerced if he even did it at all.
Speaker:Track 1: Yeah. And then the like this, what it gets even sort of, I guess, sadder for them.
Speaker:Track 1: Well, another another scene that I was going to mention before,
Speaker:Track 1: and then we sort of went on that one was when they finally do go out.
Speaker:Track 1: And I think it's when they're in Mississippi and they go to sort of the jazz
Speaker:Track 1: or the club and they're sort of having a great time.
Speaker:Track 1: And you know they end up you know leaving
Speaker:Track 1: under the you know the they get into there's like a
Speaker:Track 1: fight and they end up leaving and then the person who owns the
Speaker:Track 1: club presumably or i think it would be assuming it
Speaker:Track 1: was the owner confronts him in the bathroom recognizes him
Speaker:Track 1: and just sort of tells him to leave town and you know and it's in that moment
Speaker:Track 1: too where they i think he says you know they say you know you always carry this
Speaker:Track 1: gun on you and he says you know the the news says a lot of things kind of again
Speaker:Track 1: pointing to those you know sensationalized stories that are turning him into this you know,
Speaker:Track 1: he's like the this grand thief that's I think they also say that other,
Speaker:Track 1: crimes in other cities are being attributed to him and they make a joke like
Speaker:Track 1: the only way he could commit those
Speaker:Track 1: is if he had wings or something another good line but yeah I like that,
Speaker:Track 1: that scene just again they're just trying to have a nice time,
Speaker:Track 1: go have a couple of drinks, night in the town.
Speaker:Track 3: I mean, the, the, the guy at the club that takes his little pea shooter,
Speaker:Track 3: his 38 special or whatever, that guy's probably a much harder criminal.
Speaker:Track 1: Probably.
Speaker:Track 3: Then, then he's probably involved.
Speaker:Track 4: Clearly a gangster. He was literally like, he's like, there's not enough.
Speaker:Track 4: There's not enough space in town for the two of us. This is what he said.
Speaker:Track 4: Like, he's like, basically like, I don't want the competition.
Speaker:Track 1: I don't want.
Speaker:Track 3: The extra.
Speaker:Track 1: Heat on me here if they come.
Speaker:Track 3: Looking for you and everybody sees him as a kid even though he's 23 they think
Speaker:Track 3: of him as a kid you know, out of his element I mean.
Speaker:Track 2: He kind of is though incarcerated at 16 for 7 years this is him now just trying
Speaker:Track 2: to figure himself out and he's doing nothing but being on the lam like, he's a kid then.
Speaker:Track 1: Sort of near the end when they're sort of uh they're now
Speaker:Track 1: holed up at the motel that was owned by t-dub
Speaker:Track 1: sister-in-law buoy goes back to
Speaker:Track 1: the wedding chapel i don't
Speaker:Track 1: know i don't call it a chapel the the wedding house to
Speaker:Track 1: try and to try and get that deal to go to
Speaker:Track 1: mexico and now all of a sudden this guy's got a
Speaker:Track 1: conscious and he's not going to let them go to mexico not going to help them
Speaker:Track 1: go to mexico and it also in that scene
Speaker:Track 1: it also had like one of i thought was like
Speaker:Track 1: my favorite line from the whole movie and it says i won't sell you hope when
Speaker:Track 1: there ain't any and it's just this in some ways like that makes it more of a
Speaker:Track 1: no are like hard this is just this this sad guy he's just trying to to make
Speaker:Track 1: it as like there is just no hope it's hopeless yeah.
Speaker:Track 3: That ending is really tragic truly yeah.
Speaker:Track 4: It really it reminds me of like how you know watching films like this and You know,
Speaker:Track 4: it makes me think about the films that we watch that are contemporary and how vital it is to,
Speaker:Track 4: or how important it is and how insightful it is to look at the tone of films
Speaker:Track 4: that are produced during a time and what you can gather from about the people of that time.
Speaker:Track 4: And you imagine that like, you know, film noir exploded at this time.
Speaker:Track 4: Like this is when, you know, like, you know, and what that said about,
Speaker:Track 4: the people at the time and how desperate and how hopeless everything must have felt.
Speaker:Track 4: How how hopeless it must have felt but at the same time the fact that there
Speaker:Track 4: were people making films like this or like what you said but you know like film
Speaker:Track 4: what uh films of conscious i'm i forget exactly how you phrased it yeah socially
Speaker:Track 4: conscious socially conscious socially conscious movies,
Speaker:Track 4: how those people, even despite that, and despite the fact that those films,
Speaker:Track 4: these films really put forward such a, a,
Speaker:Track 4: a message of, or like a feeling of like how hopeless things were.
Speaker:Track 4: But these people at the same time were still making movies that even with that
Speaker:Track 4: said, these are, these are, these are human beings and they deserve rights and they deserve things.
Speaker:Track 4: And we should be we should be looking at things and people differently that
Speaker:Track 4: even at these times as that pervades the sensations of these things there are
Speaker:Track 4: still people who say like,
Speaker:Track 4: these are people and we things can and should be better like we should hope
Speaker:Track 4: for that we should want that and that really you know i feel like it's really
Speaker:Track 4: it really is something yeah.
Speaker:Track 3: You know A lot of crime movies emphasize that crime is committed because of
Speaker:Track 3: the failures of capitalism.
Speaker:Track 3: That's an inherent component of many crime movies.
Speaker:Track 3: People get swept up into crime. But I feel like contemporary movies, more often than not...
Speaker:Track 3: Emphasize someone's psychology and
Speaker:Track 3: there's something fundamentally wrong with their
Speaker:Track 3: psychology and so they have this psychological um
Speaker:Track 3: motivation for getting into crime whereas um like you said in these film noir
Speaker:Track 3: movies we don't see that kind of reading on their psychology at least the heroes
Speaker:Track 3: of these movies the protagonists many of those are actually good people.
Speaker:Track 3: They're portrayed as good people swept up. So they are responding to their conditions.
Speaker:Track 3: So it's very much a systemic sociological explanation versus a psychological explanation.
Speaker:Track 3: And I think post Hayes Code, post like this era when movies got really gritty
Speaker:Track 3: in the 70s, like these serial killer movies and all that, people are seduced
Speaker:Track 3: by this evil diabolical psychology.
Speaker:Track 3: And honestly, I don't know.
Speaker:Track 3: That bothers me. Like, I hate that because it makes it seem like crimes are
Speaker:Track 3: just something that are committed by people with defects or something like that.
Speaker:Track 3: And so it de-emphasizes the sociological, the political economy, basically.
Speaker:Track 4: So you're some kind of Marxist, is what you're saying? Some kind of materialist?
Speaker:Track 3: Yes, sir. Yes, sir.
Speaker:Track 4: Okay.
Speaker:Track 3: All right.
Speaker:Track 4: All right. I can see what kind of person we got on here. All right. All right.
Speaker:Track 3: All right.
Speaker:Track 4: So you're not big on the postmodernism? Not a huge fan?
Speaker:Track 3: Not a huge fan.
Speaker:Track 1: Again that like and you mentioned at the beginning jason the
Speaker:Track 1: uh the natural born killers and like that again i hate to print to it again
Speaker:Track 1: is that is like the quintessential crime movie about the psychology of people
Speaker:Track 1: and and as a side note as a side note i don't really like that movie at all
Speaker:Track 1: in fact i've like grown to hate that movie especially since after you.
Speaker:Track 4: Just told me to watch it.
Speaker:Track 1: Which one natural born killers yes wait no i didn't like.
Speaker:Track 4: Two days ago war.
Speaker:Track 1: Really did.
Speaker:Track 4: He not thank you okay i'm not.
Speaker:Track 1: Crazy really i mean look there's lots of bad movies i've seen that i would still recommend i.
Speaker:Track 2: Think part of it is like there's a time where
Speaker:Track 2: like the fbi just started putting out their fucking copaganda on
Speaker:Track 2: behavioral analysis even though it's like never actually done anything and so
Speaker:Track 2: that's why a lot of media has shifted right the narrative where it's like oh
Speaker:Track 2: people do crime because they're fucked up in the head and it's like no that's
Speaker:Track 2: not the fucking case that's a small sliver majority right of crime right no.
Speaker:Track 3: That's a good point it's the propaganda thing um,
Speaker:Track 3: You know, there's a movie called Dust Be My Destiny, which came out in 39.
Speaker:Track 3: So it's one of these socially conscious movies starring John Garfield,
Speaker:Track 3: who was a comrade who was blacklisted, who died too young.
Speaker:Track 3: But he's also in a couple of movies in this list of film gris.
Speaker:Track 3: He ran all the way. And it's also one of these movies where they're on the run.
Speaker:Track 3: They're hitchhiking. they're riding freight trains they're trying to just get
Speaker:Track 3: anywhere and survive but it's like there is this whole small genre of these
Speaker:Track 3: kind of movies but they're not,
Speaker:Track 3: appreciated enough today or known enough today.
Speaker:Track 1: Yeah you end up with those ones where they the as you said you know there's
Speaker:Track 1: something wrong with these people and none of them i mean i think what's so
Speaker:Track 1: important as at the beginning of the fact that nicholas ray as a you know
Speaker:Track 1: either self-described communist or you know that's what he was branded as actually putting,
Speaker:Track 1: important context in these films that i
Speaker:Track 1: do wonder i don't know maybe maybe you know this or not like when this came
Speaker:Track 1: out and people then people who did like this or they did see it did people view
Speaker:Track 1: it you think as this sort of communist film was it branded as such like were
Speaker:Track 1: this was that what's happening to films at the time or is it more of a like
Speaker:Track 1: a in retrospect kind of thing i don't know if you know the answer.
Speaker:Track 3: Um i this particular movie.
Speaker:Track 1: No i mean just sort of like the genre i guess like these kind of yeah.
Speaker:Track 3: Yeah uh yeah i mean because quite a few of the
Speaker:Track 3: most famous directors of these types of films were hauled into the huac hearings
Speaker:Track 3: dalton trumbo himself you know big he was a screenwriter but he actually was
Speaker:Track 3: wealthy he was the most he won oscars and all that sort of thing uh they were
Speaker:Track 3: hauled in and they were accused of.
Speaker:Track 3: They were injecting communist sort of themes into the films,
Speaker:Track 3: and they were accused of being in cahoots with Moscow, literally.
Speaker:Track 3: Like, they were literally doing the bidding of Moscow, but they were injecting communist themes.
Speaker:Track 3: And you know there was they were like they they just refused to talk most of
Speaker:Track 3: them some of them confessed and named names like elia kazan and some others
Speaker:Track 3: but but later on when they wrote,
Speaker:Track 3: memoirs and talked about this they would say yeah
Speaker:Track 3: we tried to push the envelope a little bit but there was just no
Speaker:Track 3: way to make an explicitly communist theme i
Speaker:Track 3: mean the one film that really is explicitly communist
Speaker:Track 3: theme from this time was completely independently made
Speaker:Track 3: which was salt of the earth and every member everybody who
Speaker:Track 3: worked on that was blacklisted and they had no choice so they self-financed
Speaker:Track 3: it but that came out a little bit later in 54 that's a mass awesome film if
Speaker:Track 3: people haven't seen it but um anyway yeah they they were accused of injecting
Speaker:Track 3: communist themes uh in the movies,
Speaker:Track 3: And many of them weren't, actually. Many of them weren't even doing that at all.
Speaker:Track 3: Some of them were trying to get away with it, but they weren't getting away
Speaker:Track 3: with much. This is about as far as they could go.
Speaker:Track 1: Yeah, I mean, that's maybe sort of the point I'm getting to is they were being accused of doing that.
Speaker:Track 1: And the actual, what they actually did put into the film would just be mildly
Speaker:Track 1: socially conscious ideas. And like, that is, you know, too far.
Speaker:Track 1: And it's no different than now where, you know, people who are barely left are
Speaker:Track 1: being, you know, referred to as communists or whatever.
Speaker:Track 3: And it just.
Speaker:Track 1: You know shifts the the idea of any of these concepts so it is at the overton
Speaker:Track 1: window further and i don't know.
Speaker:Track 3: Let me say one more thing yeah you're right and so
Speaker:Track 3: one thing to take note of is actually many of the people who are accused of
Speaker:Track 3: being communists were new deal liberals they were fdr new deal liberals and
Speaker:Track 3: they were getting accused of being communists and the communists were getting
Speaker:Track 3: accused but like nobody could tell the difference and the work they did wasn't any different, really.
Speaker:Track 3: So, yeah, that's a good point.
Speaker:Track 4: It's like how James Gunn gets accused of being woke.
Speaker:Track 1: Oh, from Superman, the most recent one, yeah.
Speaker:Track 4: Yeah.
Speaker:Track 3: I still haven't seen it.
Speaker:Track 3: Actually it's.
Speaker:Track 1: It's worse yeah.
Speaker:Track 3: I don't watch enough i don't watch new movies very much actually by new i mean
Speaker:Track 3: after the 70s i don't watch a lot of recent movies that much once in a while.
Speaker:Track 2: How's it didn't they have like a couple actors fall out a window and then like
Speaker:Track 2: the whole stat like they all just walked off set and then like the film the
Speaker:Track 2: executives were like we won't negotiate with communists oh.
Speaker:Track 3: On which movie.
Speaker:Track 2: Oh it was a some tv show i i want to say oh recently yeah very recently what
Speaker:Track 2: and like the executives were like yeah we're not going to negotiate with communists
Speaker:Track 2: yeah give me a second wasn't.
Speaker:Track 1: That the wasn't that the the like the the studio owned by the daily caller or something like the.
Speaker:Track 2: The daily wire daily wire.
Speaker:Track 1: Yeah the newest something like.
Speaker:Track 2: They're recycling.
Speaker:Track 3: All of this Red Scare rhetoric, man. And it is landing with a few people,
Speaker:Track 3: but a lot of people are like, what are you talking about?
Speaker:Track 2: Jonathan Majors and another actor should have fell out of a fucking window on set.
Speaker:Track 1: Oh, and they blamed Jonathan Majors.
Speaker:Track 4: The man who assaulted a woman, which is why they hired him.
Speaker:Track 4: They hired him because he beat a woman. And then they were like.
Speaker:Track 3: That's their brand.
Speaker:Track 2: He's a communist.
Speaker:Track 3: The Epstein class has to keep consistent, man.
Speaker:Track 2: Don't you love being here?
Speaker:Track 1: Oh, man.
Speaker:Track 2: Isn't it awesome here?
Speaker:Track 4: That is fucking wild.
Speaker:Track 1: I know that you've been on the podcast before, Jason, but do you want to tell everyone about...
Speaker:Track 1: I know you've referenced your podcast and some of the films you've done on there,
Speaker:Track 1: but you want to tell everyone about it, maybe what you have coming there?
Speaker:Track 3: Yeah, sure. You know, the podcast has kind of evolved a little bit over the,
Speaker:Track 3: we've been doing it now about two and a half years.
Speaker:Track 3: And season one, we looked at every single film.
Speaker:Track 3: So it's one film per episode like this and
Speaker:Track 3: every film we covered um was
Speaker:Track 3: either directed by a blacklisted director or
Speaker:Track 3: most of them were directed by blacklist there are a few
Speaker:Track 3: where everybody involved like many
Speaker:Track 3: of the people involved the main actors the screenwriters all the
Speaker:Track 3: personnel were blacklisted and by blacklist i mean like
Speaker:Track 3: they were accused of being communist and the industry just made a
Speaker:Track 3: list of people they're not working here for about 12
Speaker:Track 3: years or so until about 1960 they deny
Speaker:Track 3: it to this day even though it's clearly been
Speaker:Track 3: shown to be true but season one was that and
Speaker:Track 3: season two we're doing this interesting dialectical structure
Speaker:Track 3: where we're looking at hollywood film that somehow engages in cold war themes
Speaker:Track 3: directly and then a soviet film that does that back and forth actually the next
Speaker:Track 3: film we're going to cover is ivan's childhood the tarkovsky film And we're doing that this month,
Speaker:Track 3: We've been We've been working chronologically So the Cold War officially Starts
Speaker:Track 3: in 47 We're just now in the 60s We haven't gotten past the 60s yet We're going chronologically But.
Speaker:Track 3: We have about five episodes left of the season, and then we're going to branch
Speaker:Track 3: out, and I'm calling it the five-year plan.
Speaker:Track 3: I've mapped out five years of episodes, because I'm insane.
Speaker:Track 3: And basically we're going to look at socialist cinema
Speaker:Track 3: from around the world on on four or
Speaker:Track 3: five continents basically from from chile
Speaker:Track 3: to cross africa to cross eastern europe to to all over asia so that's the tentative
Speaker:Track 3: plan but that's awesome and we have some bonus episodes we've been doing in
Speaker:Track 3: it we're going to do some interviews with authors who written books about cinema and things like that.
Speaker:Track 1: Well, that's awesome.
Speaker:Track 3: Yeah, we like it. Thank you.
Speaker:Track 1: Did any of you have any last thoughts on They Live By Night?
Speaker:Track 1: I know we kind of jumped into your podcast, but any final thoughts from anyone?
Speaker:Track 3: Can I just...
Speaker:Track 2: Let me see what else I got for facts.
Speaker:Track 3: I want to hear his facts.
Speaker:Track 2: Oh, no, you go ahead. Let me pull up my facts.
Speaker:Track 3: Well, I wanted to plug one more film by Nicholas Ray that is really cool and really interesting.
Speaker:Track 3: Johnny Guitar from 1954 and
Speaker:Track 3: it's just this bizarre western there's nothing
Speaker:Track 3: really like it it's really highly stylized but
Speaker:Track 3: it's read as an allegory of this red scare where they're hauling people in to
Speaker:Track 3: testify and name names and rat out their friends but it's also just really interesting
Speaker:Track 3: the way it's made and that was made sort of in the really in the,
Speaker:Track 3: peak of this red scare huac era um so that's something i would like to plug and recommend to people.
Speaker:Track 1: Yeah i think i think you mentioned a bunch of the
Speaker:Track 1: films in here i don't know if you have any place with
Speaker:Track 1: like a like lists you've created as far as movies i
Speaker:Track 1: mean obviously movies that you've done on your podcast but those are
Speaker:Track 1: all you know good one maybe we'll maybe i'll make a list uh like a letterbox
Speaker:Track 1: uh i was like adding some of the ones you mentioned that i hadn't seen into
Speaker:Track 1: my like a my wish list or watch list so maybe i'll make a list that i can put
Speaker:Track 1: in the notes that has some of these films that people can quickly access and
Speaker:Track 1: uh check them out themselves cold.
Speaker:Track 3: War type films.
Speaker:Track 1: Yeah or i mean just some of the ones you were mentioning i think before like
Speaker:Track 1: um just some of the ones i think you said dust be my destiny and a couple of
Speaker:Track 1: those other ones just all the ones that you kind of mentioned that sure noting
Speaker:Track 1: down to maybe we'll put in the in the notes for everyone oh.
Speaker:Track 4: I did have sure,
Speaker:Track 4: So everybody, um, so as Ward mentioned, this film has gone under different, different titles.
Speaker:Track 4: What was the title? Did everybody's title card, what was your title card?
Speaker:Track 3: What does that mean? What do you mean?
Speaker:Track 4: Like what? Because so like the different titles, there's different title cards
Speaker:Track 4: for like what the movie was called.
Speaker:Track 3: Yeah.
Speaker:Track 4: So my title card is not thieves by night or they live by night.
Speaker:Track 4: My title card was for your red wagon which is the song sung by the woman in
Speaker:Track 4: the club that my copy of the film went under the title your red your red wagon.
Speaker:Track 3: Interesting yeah.
Speaker:Track 2: That's what i had as well.
Speaker:Track 1: Mine was the the they live by night.
Speaker:Track 3: Mine was too i didn't even know.
Speaker:Track 4: It had that alternative title yeah it's like
Speaker:Track 4: i think it's one of the rarer ones because even when
Speaker:Track 4: i was like looking it up like searching to like so i was like oh what you know
Speaker:Track 4: and i was like that was like one of the like one of the one of the ones but
Speaker:Track 4: it was like buried like when i was like looking for info i was like oh okay
Speaker:Track 4: and that song was beautiful that whole scene was a beautiful great song yeah
Speaker:Track 4: that was a beautiful scene the club scene yeah.
Speaker:Track 2: I'd say my last fact that's actually worth worth talking about is uh pete seager
Speaker:Track 2: auditioned and was considered for a role until uh nicholas ray decided he wanted
Speaker:Track 2: to go with somebody less noticeable.
Speaker:Track 3: What do you mean less noticeable?
Speaker:Track 2: He wanted he didn't want it to be like a super sleek like every like extremely
Speaker:Track 2: well known actors and faces in the film.
Speaker:Track 2: Oh I see. Yeah. He wanted to feel more down to earth.
Speaker:Track 3: Now that you mentioned Pete Seeger I have a fun fact about,
Speaker:Track 3: Nicholas Ray so Nicholas Ray I said grew
Speaker:Track 3: up in La Crosse Wisconsin and winds
Speaker:Track 3: up living in New York City in the
Speaker:Track 3: 40 well in the 30s and and
Speaker:Track 3: then goes bounces around and ends up back there and he's
Speaker:Track 3: like it living in the same building as Pete Seeger and he's like hanging
Speaker:Track 3: out with this whole Greenwich Village bohemian communist
Speaker:Track 3: milieu um at that time and his
Speaker:Track 3: wife was a comrade and I
Speaker:Track 3: think she was more active in like politics and i think he kept having affairs
Speaker:Track 3: and so he had a bunch of he had a really tumultuous life where he was like drunk
Speaker:Track 3: and on drugs and having affairs and cycling through relationships and that sort
Speaker:Track 3: of thing um typical hollywood story um yeah well.
Speaker:Track 1: Jason thank you for uh coming back on left of the projector this is uh at least
Speaker:Track 1: maybe for perhaps For two-thirds of us, you know, a kind of film we don't usually
Speaker:Track 1: cover, so it was nice to branch out.
Speaker:Track 3: Thanks for inviting me. I had a good time. You know, you said...
Speaker:Track 3: Here's a list but also film noir and i thought well let's let's do a film noir why not.
Speaker:Track 1: Yeah no i mean i did i did have a couple on our sort of like the the running
Speaker:Track 1: movie list but they're they're i think the ones i have on there are uh like
Speaker:Track 1: basically like five of my favorite ones,
Speaker:Track 1: laura shadow the doubt sunset boulevard big sleep and the killers like those are my in my top top those.
Speaker:Track 3: Are all great films.
Speaker:Track 1: Yeah yeah.
Speaker:Track 3: Well thanks a lot guys um if you ever need me back on i'm happy to come back
Speaker:Track 3: on and i won't i won't say rude things up.
Speaker:Track 1: No i'll survive.
Speaker:Track 4: Ward and i will survive anyway that's.
Speaker:Track 3: How thick your skin is.
Speaker:Track 4: We've all now watched film noir so we're fine yeah.
Speaker:Track 1: Yeah you don't you don't fall into that uh category anymore bill or more yeah
Speaker:Track 1: we're good yeah well maybe we'll have to cover another one maybe for no maybe
Speaker:Track 1: we know our November we'll do four in a row.
Speaker:Track 4: Ooh.
Speaker:Track 3: So are you guys doing this weekly?
Speaker:Track 1: We do.
Speaker:Track 4: We've always done.
Speaker:Track 3: That's a lot. That's a lot of, that's a lot of podcasting.
Speaker:Track 1: It is. It's, I mean, the, it's, well, for now, when we have this as the three
Speaker:Track 1: of us as guests, or my guests as hosts, it does make it a little easier if we
Speaker:Track 1: can just, we can, we don't need to have someone and,
Speaker:Track 1: you know, figure all that stuff out and just record ourselves. Yeah.
Speaker:Track 4: Yeah. Sometimes we could just, you know, schedule another person. Yeah.
Speaker:Track 1: Go, I'll go watch a movie and then, you know, tomorrow we'll talk about it or something.
Speaker:Track 4: Yeah.
Speaker:Track 3: Nice.
Speaker:Track 1: Awesome. Well, uh, everyone should go listen to your podcast and you can listen
Speaker:Track 1: to this podcast wherever, you know, uh, fine podcasts are available and we'll catch you next time.
