Seven Chances / Go West with Jamie Loftus

[00:00:01] Blank Check with Griffin and David, Blank Check with Griffin and David Don't know what to say or to expect All you need to know is that the name of the show is Blank Check Some people podcast through life making friends wherever they go

[00:00:25] While others just podcast through life Wow, which one's that from? That's from Go West. That's the opening title card of Go West. I find that this is the most successful pathway is to use these openings. These nice opening title cards that are flowery in their description.

[00:00:42] Because so often otherwise the title cards are just like, what? So someone had to sit there and paint like what, right? Because that's what you had to do. You had to paint it. Yeah. I don't know. That's a thing I love in Babylon that you see her...

[00:00:54] Anime Wong. Yeah. Is she called Anime Wong in the movie? I forgot. No, she's not. But you know, she's Anime Wong, right? I was talking to someone who read and early drafted that script where all of the characters were just the people.

[00:01:04] But that's what you... Isn't that also just a thing that you do that you just like, I'll just use the names of the people I mean and I'll replace it later? And I'll come up with a fake name later. I'll just call my ex-girlfriend my ex-girlfriend's name. Right.

[00:01:15] And then it's like, oh shit, I forgot to change it. This is why I'm a bad screenwriter is I'm like open up new document page one. This is based on this.

[00:01:22] And then I sit there for three days trying to pick the right fake name and I go, let me put this one on the back burner for a little while.

[00:01:29] Whereas those people just like they fucking type in Anime Wong, write it down and then later come up with fake names. Because, um, you know, we'll remember when we did our All That Jazz episode. I do remember. Yes.

[00:01:42] Our fancy guest revealed that the original script for that movie used everyone's real name. Hal Prince and such. Hal Prince and such. Yes. No, that's how you do it. And the many women he wronged. That's how you make a masterpiece. Not wronging women. No.

[00:01:56] But using the real names of those women in the screenplay and then changing them lightly by the time the cameras roll. But also casting the women as themselves. Yeah, well that right. He didn't give a fuck. Right? He's a complicated guy. Yeah. Yeah, he was a complicated guy.

[00:02:09] We talked about him. Did we do okay on him? I think so. I don't know. Who knows? I don't fucking know. We doing okay on this guy? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. All right, great. We're skipping one ahead in the record order versus release order. But that's fine.

[00:02:23] I kind of like this that we're still in the interesting ones. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, but it's like are we doing well? I don't know. Maybe we fucking biffed the last episode. It hasn't happened yet. Yeah, you know?

[00:02:35] Yeah, that's the energy to put out in the world. Hi. Hi. Come on, introduce us to our guests can talk to you. Please. I apologize. The last episode was totally biffed. Yeah. Guest can speak at any moment. I've got a good feeling. Great.

[00:02:47] I think it'll be, it'll turn out fine. I think it's going to be good. About the last episode. About the last episode. This one, I'm not feeling very good. Well, no, I think it's going to work. James Urbaniac, you know James Urbaniac? Yeah.

[00:02:56] He'll have done the previous episode. Okay. So actually this is this episode is going to be a steep drop-off. Nope. For the listeners. No, climbing ever higher. No. Have you ever been called like I have received that note when

[00:03:09] I've turned in scripts where I feel like neglected to like they're like at one point at three points in the script you refer to a character as Steven. You're like, oh, no, actually his, you know, his name is Steve-o or like whatever, whatever light changed that I made.

[00:03:26] I forgot to totally work through that. The control F missed that one. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I had a huge issue with that last year because I my keyboard was broken and my find and rep like my R key wasn't working. Yeah.

[00:03:39] So the find and replace it was just like not happening. I was doing it manually and a lot of stuff slipped through. Yeah, you know what I find funny is like at times when I have auditioned for things and it's like a top-secret project and

[00:03:54] they try to do that like find and replace and change all the names and whatever and the specifics and like sometimes one will slip through but also just the replacement words are terrible and transparent. I love those. My friend was auditioning for something that I we were like,

[00:04:12] it's Star Wars, right? And then it was like there was some something was missed. I forget what it was. There was like a word replacement for lightsaber. That was just very weak. Yes, we're like, okay, it's it's Star Wars. That's cool.

[00:04:27] Okay, so I think I can tell that whatever they didn't hire me. I had the opposite experience of this recently where my agent sent me a thing that they were like untitled Lucasfilm animated project, right? And they were like plot details or under wraps, but I think it's

[00:04:46] safe to assume this might take place and I long time ago and I gone for far away. So then I read the sides and the sides had Star Wars specifics in them. Oh sure, right? It said like holocron and credits like Darth Vader stands

[00:05:00] over the corpse of Luke Skywalker. It was like characters. I didn't recognize but they kept on saying Jedi lightsaber whatever. Frick. Right. We Frank they keep saying Bob Frank biopic. That would be it was like Star Wars like verbs and nouns without

[00:05:15] proper names and whatever and it look a Coruscant was was cited right and I was like they're acting like this is top secret, but Coruscant has not been replaced in it and then I'm reading through the pages and it's like this tonally feels odd for Star Wars.

[00:05:30] It's like very jokey and sort of conversational and feels weirdly modern and they're like out of college what and he's like talking about trying to like find artifacts and I was like motherfucker. This is an Indiana Jones thing. That's a diabolic thing. Wait, that's actually kind of clever.

[00:05:48] Isn't that insane? I think the show has since been canceled which is the only reason I feel comfortable saying this and also they didn't hire me right but it seemed like it was like an Indiana Jones cartoon show where

[00:05:59] it was like I remember watching him in the old adventure holograms. I think if I was micro dosing just the right amount I could do that to a script but it has to be hard to make all the Indiana Jones slip it into another. Yeah, right.

[00:06:12] Yeah, it was it was so funny. Isn't that also just a sign of like IP creep Disney or whatever right? I like to think of that as a guy. The IP creep. He's there. He can shift everything one universe over somebody say my name the IP creep.

[00:06:31] That was the voice I did for the audition by the way. Listen, this is blank check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin. I'm David. What do you say blank? No, I said I'm David. No, but before that I remember it sounded like you just I think

[00:06:43] I said, thank you. Oh for finally doing the intro and I'll say blank you. This is a podcast about filmographies directors who have massive success early on in their careers are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion projects they want.

[00:06:58] Sometimes those checks clear sometimes they bounce baby. This is this guy we're talking about Buster Keaton. We're doing main series on the films of Buster Keaton's called podcast jr. This is a true blank check career. This was a 10 film run where he just had a guy independently go.

[00:07:14] Here's your money make your movie right do another one. This one's a Western cool. Yeah, sure. Right only rule almost kill yourself. Yes every time only rule mortal danger. Yes, although the two we're talking about today are an

[00:07:27] interesting pairing because one of them is just him being like I feel like doing this and the other one was the one time where the guy threw something at him and said you have to make this interesting. Yes, which is which seven chances seven chances is like he's

[00:07:39] being forced into a and is an area. I'm movie. He basically took over it was the one time that shank was like this is what you're doing gank skank. I'm trying to Dana Stevens was was correcting me on trying to retain Rosco skank right?

[00:07:55] We have to get the Dana's right? Yeah, the Dana isms shank David skank skank shank Joe. Sorry Joe skank Joe skank. Yeah, just say skank skank. Skank. Yeah, yeah makes me feel better. Yes. Yeah our guests today return to the show from she's here the Bechtel cast.

[00:08:17] Yes recently frequently from your wrong about and your new book. Yeah, raw dog raw dog a book about hot dogs. Jamie Loftus is here Jamie. I've already said I've shared this anecdote on a different episode but Ben and I went to go see a screening producer

[00:08:36] Ben and I went to go see a screening of Sherlock jr. Was playing the other day at the Paris theater right off of Central Park and going to the screening. I was listening to your doughboys episode and then afterwards Ben was like, do you want to get food?

[00:08:50] And I was like all I want to eat now is a hot dog. Did you get one? We got fucking Nathan's cart dogs and we walked around Central Park and it was lovely and it felt like such a perfect scene a silent picture.

[00:09:00] I love that eating a Nathan's what you put on it. Just mustard just mustard just mustard and the guy had it like panache to his service. Yes. What do you mean? He kind of was like old-timey about it a little bit, you

[00:09:12] know, he like flip the bun around really specifically. He was he had a whole thing going on. He sprayed the mustard real fast. Is he like I know where the Paris is he's so he's like right in the corner of Central Park.

[00:09:21] Maybe he's like, all right, I'm getting a touristy crowd. I got to put on some show. There's the statue. Yeah, that's that little square block right next to Central Park. In front of the famous hotel. Right, right. Across from the Apple store. That corner between the Plaza.

[00:09:33] You know what I'm talking about. I do. He was I have written many a review there. Yes, he was there. That's where he was that's you guys went on a date 99 years ago. I know that's so sweet. Very old-timey. I love that. It's an old-timey courtship.

[00:09:46] How it's yeah. Wow. Yeah, any jacket exchanges? No, I made Ben carry my books. Okay. Okay. Give him a pin. Yeah, I get my pen. When did that stop the pins? So the I want to bring it back. Yeah, can we bring that back?

[00:10:02] Hey, if you go to Disney World and never stopped. Wow pin trading the whole fucking I have no idea what that is. If you're not I'm happy. I don't really I don't know anything about that. It's a whole subculture. I'm not saying that defensively. It's a whole subculture.

[00:10:15] No, that wasn't defensive at all. Yeah, it wasn't defensive at all. I definitely didn't put my hands up like I was being arrested. What is it? What is it? There's fucking love pins there. But like do you wear many pins? Yes, and people trade them. Okay.

[00:10:29] Okay, they sell they sell the pins there at various places, but there's also this thing where like special pins that are absolutely all time limited things. There's so too many side tangents. They made no merchandise whatsoever of my character in disenchantment. I'm sorry. What?

[00:10:48] Insulting I play a fucking cartoon chipmunk who turns into a cat. Yeah, but you peak pin. Yes. Yeah, you that's begging for a pin wished on some wishing stone when you were 10 to have merch made of you right and then now

[00:11:01] every time you're in a thing that seems merchandisable. I know like we'll make merch of everything but Griffin played a fucking superhero and a talking cat and I got nothing. You're not. Yeah, you're not going to get a sure thing than the disenchantment. No done.

[00:11:13] Well, what the fuck happened? But so I was like, I guess I gotta fucking buy all the merch from the first movie. The character existed in when I didn't play him, right? Unbelievable. The best pin of my character on eBay $900.

[00:11:27] Wow, you got priced out price out fucking boxed out. This is when I was looking like two years when I started when I got the part before the movie had been announced maybe or you know, it wasn't like oh there's a bump. Oh wow. Here it is 900.

[00:11:41] Wow, and it really is just it's just a little chipmunk. Can you pay in for? Chipmunk. Yeah. Yeah, maybe just split that up. Just paying for get a new credit card. This is the thing. This is the thing. They drowning in pin payments. What what's up?

[00:11:56] Most of the stores that sell pins at Disney World if you're like, let me see your pin board the guy who works behind the counter the guy or gal works behind the counter takes out a board and it's a bunch of pins.

[00:12:07] It's almost like a take a penny leave a penny right and you can like give them a pin and take one off the interesting. Yeah, so there's this whole secret underground. So the next time you go to Disney you're just gonna be doing

[00:12:19] that right gonna be this is the only one. Yeah, because there's a bunch of oh, well wait, this one's only $100 which one let me see if I have it. Yeah, I have that in the boat. Yeah, I have that. Oh, he's got it. I didn't pay a hundred.

[00:12:34] I waited for a good deal. Okay, I'm glad for you. Listen, we're talking about Buster Keaton. Of course. I bet there's pins of him. Yeah. Yeah, although I was doing some research. He never got enough merchandise in his day.

[00:12:45] I feel like he mostly I mean he was like a big deal in cartoons later on. Yes, and there's like free and easy or is it or maybe it's in spite marriage will rewatch spite marriage for this but there

[00:12:57] is a bit with him with a doll of himself. Oh sure. But I don't know if it was ever mass-produced. That's what I've been trying to find out. I love that. He's just I feel like we need more huge movie stars who basically just look really tired.

[00:13:12] I think that's so nice. Thank you. Magic. Yeah. Yes. Yes, he does look tired. I would love a Buster action figure. He is athletic. Yeah, and then you could have one where like he could have a mustache or magnifying glass. Sure. You want to dress him up? Exactly.

[00:13:28] You can have various. Dress him up and move him around Jamie. What's your relationship to Buster Keaton? We sort of when we decided we were doing this we went through our favorite guests from the past and just started knocking

[00:13:39] on doors and going like do you like Buster Keaton by any chance trying to identify the people who were already friends with who have some appreciation for his work and you bumped up to the top of the list very quickly. I like Buster Keaton a lot.

[00:13:53] I don't think I haven't seen all of his work, but I watched it when I was a kid and I liked it and then I like had to watch it in film school, but I really got into it like five years ago.

[00:14:06] Okay, when I was like starting to put together more physical comedy shows myself. I'm like well seems like a good person to watch and what I like about Buster Keaton is that he didn't famously like molest teenagers, which you can't say all stars in that are unbelievable quality.

[00:14:26] Yeah, and I would say maybe a little rare this time. And so I really liked I thought his like personal history was really interesting and he's just like really fucking good. I had not seen either of the movies for today, but I'd seen the big ones.

[00:14:44] I'd seen the general. I'd seen Sherlock Junior. Yeah, I'm a fan. He puts me in a good mood. Go West is kind of slept on and then Seven Chances is so famous for the end section, but I think otherwise I think

[00:14:58] it's a movie that more often like bits of it get repurposed in montages or people just watch The Chase or whatever. The Chase is great. I mean The Chase is incredible. Both of these movies weirdly end with a stampede of some

[00:15:12] sort whether it be a grieved women or cattle. Yes, which in 1925 were the same thing. The man loved being chased. Yeah, he did love it. There's just what a spectacle because Cops has, you know, a stampede of cops. He loves stampedes.

[00:15:29] I feel like that thing where the amount of creatures chasing him becomes so large. It's almost abstract. It's not a few right? It's a like it's so short. You're right. You're right. You can't count. You can't count it. Yes.

[00:15:42] Yes, but he's also he is such a good on-screen runner. Yes, I loved in was it Go West? Yeah, it is with the cops when the cops are running where he like I don't know. I mean like his timing is incredible obviously but like

[00:15:57] he falls behind and then he surges ahead and then he falls behind again and you're like that was all planned. How could you pull that off? It's incredible. His control is insane. He does everything while making it look like he's putting

[00:16:08] in a minimum amount of effort and he's unaware and also his shooting style is so unfussy and especially when it comes to these big chase scenes. It really is impressive how much he just like holds the camera way back doesn't cut watches you.

[00:16:23] He's just a little this little ant going right? Yeah, I mean seven chances is all that what we'll talk about, you know, he does the leaps. He does the tree. He does a lot of cool things. Blow my fucking mind because it looks like you're watching

[00:16:35] like a Super Mario speed race. That's what it looks like where you're like someone has just practiced the timing of this so perfectly that he just knows exactly when to jump and how to land without missing a beat.

[00:16:44] He's not dynamic in this sort of Tom Cruise way of like, oh, there are like pistons pumping inside right man. He's like a little cartoon thing. That's going. Yes, like been wound up. So we'll Sprite. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, he's he you're right.

[00:16:56] He is good now like buying like like his story for 1920s Hollywood is surprisingly that's Jamie's point. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, I was leaping back to right because you tell almost people from this time you got to separate the art from the artist. I like that.

[00:17:10] You can go like I'm a fan of his work and his personal life seems like a good guy. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it was horny in a regular way and he divorced and he had right Affairs perhaps but like hit

[00:17:24] a drinking problem, but it was I think he was more like the guy was a little haunted little haunted. Obviously, he was a vaudeville child, which is it's a great like, you know, bizarre but but like no accounts of him fucking perpetuating cycles of abuse on other people.

[00:17:38] So just like none of that sort of like sure. He ran over several people in his jalopy, but you know, and then some like that's just how I would be like, hey nobody hears about this. Okay, you know or whatever like a hundred years ago.

[00:17:53] It's not like I think there's suddenly going to be a fucking Sharon Waxman expose. We finally got a button like if there was stuff that was horrible about him. It would have come out in the wash by now. I think so. Yeah.

[00:18:04] Yeah, lovely tired man puster Keaton sleepy himself. No is so sleepy. Here's here's something I want to throw out. We announced the miniseries at the time we announced that we had recorded the first couple episodes. A comment I saw a lot on Twitter and the like Twitter

[00:18:23] where a great normal place, right? Which really I will say was a shock to me. I had not noticed until people pointed it out. No a question that was thrown out a lot was are you guys going to talk about how hot buster is I think

[00:18:37] we already did but I think we need to talk about it more because clearly there's a man so glad I'm here. I felt like you were possibly the right guests to get into this conversation. I would love to talk about this. Yes, right.

[00:18:49] Well, I guess I would be first curious of like what do you feel is hot about buster Keaton? I will say this when I look at him. I'm like, I wish that's exactly how I look, you know, where it's like if I look at someone like Chris Evans,

[00:19:05] I'm just like well, that's he's a different species than I am. There's no world in which I think I possibly look our ghosted. Yeah, do you know that movie exists? Look my swear to God. I walked into the room and my wife was watching

[00:19:19] it and I was almost I was like, what are you doing? Yeah, she's like, I don't know it came on. We built a life together. It's impossible for ghosted to come on. You have to choose it in our marital bed.

[00:19:31] You're watching ghosted and I walked in and she was like, it's pretty bad and I'm like, yeah, yeah had that vibe and Ryan Reynolds. I don't know if you know this appears in the film in a sort of a cameo role. He's kind of talks a lot.

[00:19:48] He never does this. Is he drinking some of his own alcohol? He may be honestly like this this fucking infuriating thing where every A-list star needs to make five cameos in the other A-list stars movies and vice versa. It's like the same 10 exactly like we're all friends, right?

[00:20:08] And then just like I wasn't worried about you not being friends. She was like, I'm like, oh God Ryan Reynolds. He has like an eye patch and he's going like and like and she's like, yeah, you know, Anthony Mackie

[00:20:19] already showed up and Sebastian Stan and I was just like, what are we doing? You're fucking kidding me. Yeah, and then she it just kept running and then Apple played all of Tetris like a none neither of us watch.

[00:20:31] Yeah, Apple is truly trying to be like these movies are in households. The Russo had no direct involvement in ghosted, right? I don't think so, but it feels like everyone is blaming them for it. Just sort of mad at the way you did this.

[00:20:43] This is your fault one way or another. They helped create the problem that led to ghosted. Yes, but the thing about ghosted is it's directed by Dexter Fletcher and I enjoyed Rocketman. He's a solid filmmaker. Exactly. I got no beef with him.

[00:20:56] Wow, the director of Rocketman did Ghosted? And honestly, I like Chris Evans and Anna Darabont. They're fine. Am I gonna watch Ghosted? Yeah, I think we should we throw it on? Like should we turn this into a Ghosted episode? Ghosted live watch? Yeah.

[00:21:10] Isn't like Tim Blake Nelson in it too? He's the villain I think. Of course, but this is the whole thing. It's like there's some sort of like, you know, atmosphere of this movie cannot exist that just once they roll the cameras like every the charisma has

[00:21:23] to be sucked out of the room with like a vacuum. But your thing of like why can no one make a comedy without guns in it? When that trailer came out, I was like I'm kind of into this.

[00:21:33] So the premise of the movie is just they go on a date. She doesn't respond. Chris Evans freaks out trying to find her. Right, right. And it's like, okay, it's just he's flying across the world trying to find the woman who ghosted him.

[00:21:47] And then it's like minute one second 20 of trailer is turns out she's a spy and that's why she ghosted him because she was undercover and now he's roped into her mission. But that's two movies. Two different movies. I couldn't give less of a shit about the second one.

[00:22:04] My boys Buster. Buster. So part of this I what I was trying to say here is like a projection thing where I'm like Buster feels like the glow-up version of how I wish I looked within the

[00:22:17] realm of who I am, you know, I get that where I'm like weak little skinny sad boy. I don't with beautiful depth in his eyes. That's what I it's all the bag as a man with heavy bags himself. I have heavy eyes. I'm here.

[00:22:35] I yes the the sort of like the haunted eyes is what does it for me the most. Yeah, but then there's also just kind of something saucy about him likes very secretly and like his movies are you know, I don't know his movies are cute and he's always

[00:22:53] they're flirty. He's always romantically. There's always a lady of the film. Yeah, and he's kind of, you know, he's kind of got something I saw Brendan Hines friend of the show passing future guests. He and I went this weekend to they've been doing Harold

[00:23:08] Lloyd movies at Film Forum here in New York City. Harold Lloyd was like an absurdly conventionally handsome man. He was like the Chris Evans star of ghosted of his day. And it's a thing that's discussed where it's like he came

[00:23:22] up with like he found dumb glasses and like would make sillier faces to try to make himself look less handsome and Charlie Chaplin the same fucking deal where he was like a pretty conventionally handsome guy and was like could put on a little mustache and like wear shittier

[00:23:38] clothes and whatever. There's something interesting to the fact that Buster doesn't do anything to make himself look less attractive but through sheer performance is able to sell that he is low status underdog in his movies. Whereas those other guys had this arrogance of like no one

[00:23:55] would buy me as the butt of a jill. I have to make myself look more like the common man. What do you think? There's something insecure about it. Oh, lady. Right. I mean Buster. Yeah, I I want to be Buster and be with Buster.

[00:24:10] There's a little bit of both and I feel like that is part of his appeal because I genuinely wish I could do so much of what he can do and it's just like I would break most people would break and die. Yes. But also I don't know.

[00:24:23] But she did both. Let's acknowledge. She did both break and eventually die. Didn't he like break his neck at some point? And then they told him curiously. Okay. Yes. He didn't realize it. God. He gets up and finishes the take and then finish the movie.

[00:24:37] That's like I like how Michelle Yeoh broke her back during Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and just never knew. Like how could you? I don't know. It's wild shit. It's wild shit. But yeah, but then I feel like Buster's really good at like

[00:24:51] the balance that he's striking as a romantic lead where it's like he's a plausible romantic lead, but he's not it doesn't feel like in the way that when some comic actors are a romantic lead. It's in this weird self-conscious way, but it just feels

[00:25:07] like very natural the way he does it. I really liked that in Seven Chances the kiss is bad. Yes. And like he just I don't know it doesn't feel self-conscious in the way that he needs to like prove. He's the quote-unquote appropriate amount of hot to be a

[00:25:23] romantic lead. Like it just works. You totally get why women want to be with him. That's the you totally get why they don't. He's got he's very good at Seven Chances, of course has to navigate that right. Right.

[00:25:34] He's got a weird confidence though that I think that's a key. I also I think he's got like a just kind of a beautiful face, right? It is a very special face. He is very pretty right? He just got pretty a beautiful long head. Yes.

[00:25:46] He's got a long flat head. Yeah big long head. Yeah, what was there's a term JJ pulled up in the research in some Buster quote where he was describing his stone face and one of the terms he used was a flat pan to describe his own face.

[00:26:01] He said, you know my my mug my flat pan I would make out with him. You would I would yeah. Oh my God. Yeah, but I'm just but it's hard. This is the thing. I think I'd be nervous to have sex with him because I think

[00:26:13] there would be hijinks and I'd have to be involved like it would go wrong in some very elaborate well done. It wouldn't go right. I can guarantee you that but this is this is another thing. I think it's hard to imagine him having sex in a way that

[00:26:26] is kind of interesting where even you talk at making out with him. You're like there's something oddly chaste about him. There's this quiet confidence to him that extends to the fact that like he's not needing to put on something of like

[00:26:39] well, I'm going to play dorkier than I am. He just kind of feels like he is he's unreadable right? And there's just sort of this like stillness and this peace to him. He has this like which makes sense because he's a vaudeville

[00:26:52] kid, but you're just like he has this like homeschooled energy about him right where when I've noticed yes, when people are homeschooled and hot they know it but in this way that is a little weird. Yes, I can't quite interact with you like a hot person who

[00:27:10] went to public school. I don't know what I mean by that. I feel like people are going to yell at me. No, I completely understand what you mean. I feel like you have a specific example in your head that you are thinking of that we don't know about.

[00:27:21] A name you changed in the screenplay. Right, but I also just like yeah, there's a difference between like knowing how to get you know at school. You got to be flirty. You got to be you know, you're in this social scene, right?

[00:27:32] You know and being homeschooled and like having to turn it on. Jamie, we will have talked about this in the first episode and sort of setting context of his career, but he was the first kid of like really middling vaudeville entertainers, right?

[00:27:49] Who start working him into the act and he immediately is the star of the act and basically makes his father career. His father has a career finally because of Buster blowing up. I'm sure that ends well. Absolutely. Yeah, and they have two other children and those two children

[00:28:06] get to go to like nice private schools and have like fancy toys and stuff and Buster's like the breadwinner for the family who went to school one day in his entire life. No, and he wasn't even like homeschooled. Really.

[00:28:18] He was just in a world with adults learning like human behavior getting I listen to an interview with Dana yesterday and about like him getting tossed into the crowd with like a handle on his jacket. It's nuts nuts nuts stuff.

[00:28:33] But like yeah, it was just this thing of him like day in day out being like, oh if I do this here, it gets more of a laugh than if I wait here and I do it then. Yeah, and it's like the weirdest homeschool possible. Exactly.

[00:28:45] How do I get thrown correctly? Right? How do I be the human mop for you know in a way that will make my family money, right? But he has this like high-level intelligence for like things that other people don't think about that is in his being

[00:28:58] right and by the time he's making movies and like, you know, he's 27 in these two films, which is ridiculous. Ridiculous. I was like wow, why can't 27 year olds look that tired anymore? I know tired thing and that is also ultimately it's just very sexy to be tired.

[00:29:15] I've and I would like for people to really that's got a catch on. Big for me. I think you're talking to your preacher the choir. This is a room of people who try to own looking tired all the time because we've learned that you cannot you

[00:29:30] can't fight it. No can't untired myself just going to get sleepier. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I love to be sleepy. And so maybe that's why yeah, maybe I sort of prefer Buster to these other guys because he's haunted.

[00:29:44] Yeah in a way that feels like he's not trying to win my affection, but I also see gets even more of it and then I were having this conversation after we saw Sherlock Junior in your frickin hot dogs Frank footers and Ben no, just like no interesting. Interesting.

[00:29:58] I would have done ketchup and mustard personal. I don't know. Yeah, we think we're similar. Right? I mix it up. I don't have I go with the mood at the moment. Sure. I'm verse when it comes to dogs.

[00:30:08] I'm pretty verse where they were they water dogs or grill dogs if it's Nathan's I would think they'd be on a grill. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's why you go to the Nathan's cart as opposed to the I don't mind a water dog.

[00:30:19] I like a water dog. I don't either but that was not the choice we made on that day. No, but given the choice I'm going great. Yes me too. Yeah, but Ben we were in our frankfurters and that was just going like what's his deal?

[00:30:31] Yeah, I guess I kind of right that you're like, can you look explain to me like what is Buster Keaton's thing in a way where you were like, I've been watching these movies. I'm getting into him. I think he's really funny but like what is this comedic persona?

[00:30:43] I can't explain it. Yeah, it's not really clearly definable though. It is at the same time, right? But it just feels like an amalgamation of a lot of stuff right? But part of his like here's this guy who's like constantly like under the boot of society, right?

[00:30:58] Who also always seems like he's maybe halfway towards falling asleep right in like very high stakes very high danger situations that he somehow always comes out of perfectly. He Mr. Magoo's his way out of everything. Yeah, yeah, but like can't react to it in this cool way.

[00:31:14] I don't know. No, that's what's that you're right. Yeah, never he never celebrates the triumphs either. He's just like he just keeps walking. Yes. I love him so much off man. I'm just the more we talk about him the more I love him

[00:31:25] like I agree because there's like a million, you know, like people who try to train but it's like the only way you can be this kind of person is to be thrown around by your father a hundred years ago. Like it just can't really happen anymore.

[00:31:39] That's a thing dressed as like a Irish purse. They're person stereotype. Buster Keaton dresses an Irish person. I saw the picture of him as a kid with like as a little old man. The little ball. That isn't apparently an Irish stereotype.

[00:31:52] That was the stereotype Jamie and I heard that was my reaction too. I was like, I don't get why this is an Irishman. Yeah, but it is you guys have seen this already. Obviously, someone's going to Photoshop that picture with the Irishman of Martin Scorsese.

[00:32:05] They should do that. Yeah, they should Photoshop you into it. Yeah, maybe I'll Photoshop my daughter into it. I mean, there's just a lot to be done with it. Yeah, that's a great. That's a great Halloween costume. That's what you're done. David. That's what your daughter next year.

[00:32:20] She's an Irishman. Yeah, like what are you talking about? It's actually really offensive. Right? This would be very offensive in the 1900s little buster little buster, but that's that's the other part of it is just like the fact that he doesn't feel the need to show off right?

[00:32:38] Yeah that it feels like he's constantly like trying to be modest in his work and even the way he frames his stunts are so on show off. He like as a director and he doesn't have that satisfaction of the moment of like I killed that, you know, right?

[00:32:53] He never has that look to the audience where he's like, look at me. He's kind of high status low status. I'm a switch is between both of them like seamlessly. It's really wild. I feel like that happens a lot in seven chances, right?

[00:33:05] Yeah, he's like back and forth every two seconds, but it always makes sense. I don't know. See us. Yeah. No, you're right. I think seven chances is amazing. I like see okay. So what's I know he doesn't like it and we'll talk about this. Yes.

[00:33:18] He was very down on seven. She was like it's my first bad picture where it was never was a stinker. He is wrong. Yeah, but I do I of the ones like we've watched so far for the pod.

[00:33:29] So yes, only watched four means so far for the pot is my favorite really of the four we've watched. So okay. Yes. Well Sherlock jr. Will have been the exact not counting right things like that undeniable. It is a bit undeniable.

[00:33:43] Well, let's talk about seven chances a little bit. Okay, Buster Keaton. He signed a contract and he delivered four movies, you know, the first one movies three ages are hospitality, but then sure like your and especially the Navigator and the fucking humongous right now. Big hit blows up.

[00:34:04] That is bigger than Sherlock jr. I believe that was his biggest film. Yeah, at least at the time. Yeah, and so he signs another deal to do six more movies. He's going to make 27 grand per movie, which is a bad battle thousand dollars a week. Yeah.

[00:34:19] Okay, that sounds good. Nice work if you can get it. And that can he's making like two pictures a year, right? Exactly. Yeah, and I basically keep some independent all the way through like Steve O'Biell jr. And Joe skank as you mentioned Griff mostly had left him

[00:34:34] alone, but seven chances is the one he only one he forces on him. Yeah, this is the thing Griff Sherlock jr. Had actually somewhat disappointed and the Navigator does do well, but it costs a lot of money. So there was some anxiety over that.

[00:34:51] So maybe that's why I rain him in a little bit, right? Maybe that's why this is the moment where Joe skink has a little that's his producer has a little leverage on him. I do also think there's this point where you look at a

[00:35:03] lot of like comedy a-listers, right? They start out their career where it's like you find the right collaborators. You're generating your own material. Here are the characters you've been dying to do and then a lot of these guys at a certain point when they get really

[00:35:15] big throttle into a point where they're like, I don't know could I do like a modern version of this? What's like a hit that I can adapt? What's the thing I can option right, you know, you start slotting yourself in where Sandler's like, let me just like remake.

[00:35:27] Mr. Deeds or let me find like a spec script that's floating around have my guys rewrite it to fit my personality more. Yeah, but if you're Eddie Murphy, why not just remake dr. Doolittle right? Why not and I liked it better. Yeah, he did it. It is better.

[00:35:43] It is better. Wait, is that indisputable that Eddie Murphy's dr. Doolittle is better than Rex Harris? Almost Dr. Doolittle right? Because Rex Harrison's one is bad. Yeah, it's bad and long. It's so long. It's boring. It's the longest movie ever made. Right. And obviously Robert Downey Jr.

[00:35:58] Came for the throne and miss. So that's I loved watching him try to come for the throne though. It was thrilling. I've seen that movie twice. I was telling David I'd been on a bit of an Eddie kick and I rewatch dr.

[00:36:11] Doolittle one and I was like God, it's such a like slam dunk premise to just be like his name's do little and he talks to animals. Why has no one tried to do this since Eddie Murphy and then I remembered.

[00:36:20] Oh the biggest movie star tried to do it two years ago. It was the most colossal atomic disaster. Oh, it looked like shit and it felt like shit to watch but that's the thing with getting really good shit to watch. It felt like sure.

[00:36:32] I want the Eddie Murphy movie is pretty good. Norm is the dog. Yes, rock is the hamster. It's a guinea pig. It's the length of a Buster Keaton feature. It is truly like 65 minutes long before credits. You don't need much more basically has no plot and it's

[00:36:45] All you need from this movie is just he talks to animals. The animals talk to him. They funny voices get ringers in fucking Ellen DeGeneres and Albert Brooks and whoever he is a doctor though. Yeah, of course.

[00:36:55] Well like he's like a real but he's like a doctor with the stethoscope. Yes. Yes, whereas I feel like classically dr. Doolittle is more of a PhD doctor. The plot of the call me doctor and you're like, yeah, okay

[00:37:06] doctor and so far as there is a plot the plot of that film is that he has a private practice with I want to say Oliver Platt and Richard Schiff. Yes, I've seen this movie a lot and Peter Boyle is thinking about acquiring them.

[00:37:18] He's going to buy them. There's like a business plot right and he talked to animals as a kid his dad Ozzie Davis thought he was insane brought him to a therapist who like I don't know trained about of it, right?

[00:37:32] Yeah, and then he gets into a car crash and suddenly the voices come back to him and Oliver Platt and Richard Schiff are like keep it together for five more days and he's like I gotta do brain surgery on this Tiger and that's the entire

[00:37:46] plot of the movie is just he wants to perform surgery on this Tiger and they want him to not embarrass who plays the tiger Albert Brooks. I'm a tiger. I need brain surgery. I don't think I knew who all the famous people in that

[00:38:00] movie were the last time I saw this movie. I got to go back and I feel the same every boy. It's like just wall-to-wall stunt casting. I feel like the which is yeah, necessarily Gary Shanling's a pigeon. It's like fucking everyone John Leguizamo's a rat.

[00:38:14] Oh, and then I remember because the daughters were Raven and then the girl who played Penny Proud on the proud family Calipra. Yes, that was what was interesting to me at the time. I also just famous guy talking to animals it works and there

[00:38:29] is like a moment there where it was like dad's getting into accidents was a pretty normal part of movies because I was yes, Jack Frost as well. Well, yeah, it's like Michael Keaton dies in a car accident.

[00:38:40] I but it's okay because it gets turned into a snowman that looks like George Clooney. It's perfect. Everything works out fine. I love that. Yeah, but yes, do we love that? Is that is that movie depressing? I've not had movies in right?

[00:38:50] It's that movie's Tompkins is in the beginning of that's true because he was directed by Jimmy Miller who did a lot of Mr. Show. Yes, I asked him about it once and he I'll send it to you.

[00:39:03] He I asked for a full he gave me so much information. It's like a 12 tweet thread, you know about the George Clooney thing though, right? The snowman looks like George Clooney because George Clooney was supposed to be in the movie.

[00:39:14] I just always have to bring that movie was meant for George Clooney. It took him a really long time to build the thing and he saw the model and he was like, I think this is going to be a

[00:39:20] career killer and it was like right after that man and Robin like right that is George Clooney's face. That is George Clooney's face on the snowman. This is the thing they understood the assignment. They did in a way but it's like but he correctly saw that

[00:39:35] and was like, oh my God George Clooney quit the movie was so far along. They had built the snowman and they were like who is a leading man who looks a little bit like the snowman and they laid it on Michael.

[00:39:47] I love the idea of them just holding up headshots being like yeah, but it was like a train. They couldn't stop. They were like someone has to the things been built weird that it kind of does look like George Clooney.

[00:39:59] Yes, it's like a perfect caricature of George Clooney, but I could I mean if I saw a snowman that looked too much like me. I would also want to not be anywhere near it. Yeah, I don't do and don't write show that to me.

[00:40:14] It's like an uncanny Valley thing. Like the fact that you're revolting against it means that there's some survival mechanism that's working. Oh my God, but this is yes, these types of movies we're talking about are the things that get thrown at someone when

[00:40:26] they're like a proven a list comedy star and they maybe don't want to have to like get in the trenches and generate their own material anymore. Right and Nick skank Joe skank. Comes to him and basically is like here you go. Here's an alley-oop.

[00:40:40] Here's a farce that's killing it on Broadway, right? I brought it to you. What a simple premise. Let's plot slot you in it as the leading man and and Keaton called it the kind the type of unbelievable farce.

[00:40:50] I don't like which is I guess he just thinks it's too high concept. Maybe the whole like he's got to get married today or else he's gonna lose all the money. Well, I guess which to me great bit incredible set up so

[00:41:04] Yeah, but you compare this to go West where the setup is he decides to go West and gets a cow. That's his dream set up for a movie is I don't know give me one thing. Yeah, I mean give me a place but that the thing would go

[00:41:18] West which we will talk about. Yes is right though said the plot sounds like it's like a guy goes West. Yeah, but then like 10 minutes and it's like the guy's gonna fall in love with a cow. Okay, that's yeah, that's what this is about right?

[00:41:28] This is a two-hander. It's a him and the cow. Yeah, I prefer the love story and go West to the love story and seven chances, but I like seven chances better. I like seven chances better. But yes, I mean she should she should not give him the time

[00:41:41] of day. No, and I am annoyed at him in the end of the movies. Which will loved her letter though. Her letter to him is so funny where I was like I should end all my texts to guys like just moving forward PS.

[00:41:54] I think I will be home all day like that's like yeah, that's usually true. Yeah, I heard you say you're on right just come knock on my door. So my theory is I think why he hated this so much.

[00:42:05] He hated this as a piece of material and he hated even how it turned out at the end. Talking about the peculiarities of his persona, especially as a romantic lead. This is like this is a movie where this character is driving the machinations of the plot.

[00:42:24] Whereas most of Buster Keat movies are a movie happens to him accidentally, right? This is a movie. He's just trying to be normal and things keep being not normal, right? Yeah, that makes sense. I think it felt like anathema to him of like my whole thing

[00:42:39] is that I'm just standing at the center of a storm and I'm reacting to stuff and then I move to the next right? Whereas this guy has to like plot and it's like the things are set in motion and he's the one who's like, here's what

[00:42:52] I need to do and there's like an innate level of dishonesty of him trying to pick up these women which he talks a lot about like he thought it was the death of comedy to worry about whether you were sympathetic or not, right?

[00:43:06] But I do think he had some central metronome without ever intellectualizing it of what makes me a character that audiences will like root for and I think he felt to some degree this breaking of like this guy's kind of a cad.

[00:43:21] Yeah, if you read the plot aloud, he sounds like a cad. Yeah, I think Keaton gets how to make him not feel like a cad. He does, he does. He does a good job, but you can you get why he would dislike

[00:43:34] this movie because it feels like it's going against everything he had spent decades on it. It definitely doesn't feel like any other Buster Keaton movie that I've seen but that's kind of why I liked it. I was like, oh, I wouldn't expect him to see him in something

[00:43:47] that was like farce feeling. No, right and he's playing like sort of I don't know in some of his other features you get him like pretending to be a rich person, you know, or like a sort of smooth operator for moments. This is more like

[00:44:05] kind of that guy and then he's slowly being broken down. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I thought it worked. I liked it a lot. It's such a good premise. We should just say he's got a business partner. Their firm is like going under. Yes.

[00:44:20] They're not only like bankrupt but they might even go to Jail. It's perfectly vague. Yes, there's ruin untold. Yes money soon or else right consequences are unimaginably bad. They think they're being chased by a lawyers coming to like collect someone who wants to break their kneecaps or something.

[00:44:41] Yes played by snits Edwards. This guy that guy what a face this guy. What a name his name is snits Edward's. Yes, a Hungarian Jewish performer who had become a big Broadway star in the turn of the century.

[00:44:59] I'm going to talk about us not having enough modern movie stars who look tired. We don't have enough guys like this lighten up Broadway. He's in three Busters. So we will talk about snits Edwards again probably looks like college snits his best. And let's make it clear.

[00:45:15] This is some ghosted too, but I thought it felt it was forced with nothing. It was just a pop. It was a cameo pop. This is a pro snits podcast. We should make very clear. Absolute snits every time they cut to snits.

[00:45:28] I was laughing his reaction shots are so funny, but that's the other thing like at times snits is almost occupying the classic Buster role the longer the movie goes on his face is doing so he's what apparently is referred to as a homely face. Okay, you know performer.

[00:45:44] Uh-huh like where it's just like, you know, just one look at this guy's face is going to get like the whole theater laughing. Yes, if you just like if a lady like looks at him and he's just like then like the whole theater is going to lose it.

[00:45:55] Yeah, I smiled. Yes every time listener. Okay. So yes, so he needs he finds out from his lawyer snits that he must marry the executor of his grandfather's estate and if he marries by 7 p.m. On his 27th birthday, which happens to be this day.

[00:46:12] Yes, he will inherit seven million dollars seven like a lot of money seven. Yeah, in 1925 money. She might yeah, he'd be fucking Nelson Rockefeller. Yeah, sure. He'd be Nelson Rockefeller the not yet born later to be vice president. Okay, I don't know.

[00:46:30] Actually, who is the richest person in 1918? You know what this movie this movie is what 2425 Henry Ford was the richest person alive. I love that. I could Google that. So fast. He'd be old Ford who was the richest person in 1925 and it

[00:46:48] was Henry Ford a cool chill guy. Very chill. They made everything better. Thanks. No felt good about all people great legacy. Right? So he does have a girlfriend. He does a sweetheart. I should write a sweetheart. I gotta bring that term back.

[00:47:06] Yeah, because I think the beginning of this movie is in color to like so I very briefly I should address that right Buster wanted to make the whole movie in Technicolor basically because he hated this thing so much that he was like least

[00:47:17] that'll be interesting if I do in color. It's a technical experiment but because of the way he made movies where he would shoot so much film and then cut out just you know, cut cut it down to the bone. It was too expensive.

[00:47:29] So they only did it for the prologue. And when I threw this movie out on I was like some weirdo colorized absolutely. Yes. Yeah, I had that reaction and then realize like no this isn't a movie. Right? It's some Tumblr free. Hand paint a Buster Keaton movie.

[00:47:45] I have fallen down this rabbit hole. There's this weird community of people on YouTube who do AI upscale 4k colorized 60 frames per second Busters. Too many words. They are disgusting. They must be very unsettling. Yes. Do they look ugly? Horrendous. Yeah, because it's like AI automatic coloring.

[00:48:06] So it's like... Right, so it's like off. And it's like it can't keep up with the speed. He's moving right, you know, so it like knows like well his pants are a different shade than his face. I like that Buster is trying to track them in real time.

[00:48:20] Yes. No, the robots cannot fucking keep up with him much like all of his potential brides. Yes, right. This is the thing. I'm just pulling up JJ's dossier. So I have the specific name here, but there was the other director hired first to do the film.

[00:48:35] Yes, it was the other directors name. Of course was Mr. John McDermott who wrote the play, right? Yes. Am I right about this? No, but he maybe directed the play. I think Roy McGuire. Yes. Or McGrew or something wrote the play, but John McDermott

[00:48:52] had been involved and this was him trying to rain Buster in of here's material. I'm bringing to you. Here's a director just plug in as the actor, right? And Buster had no interest in doing that and after a week

[00:49:05] of filming McDermott leaves and says you are the star and the producer your version will be the one used you're wasting thousands of dollars having me on this picture. Yeah, which is probably just what Buster wanted probably Buster like told a version of the story that was basically

[00:49:21] disputed by everyone else where he was wasting so much money on the film that they fired him, but it sounds like he refers to McDermott as a local screwball. Another great term and he says right that he was the one

[00:49:34] wasting money because he was like, you know hiring extra writers and making fancy sets and he got fired but for the for the record almost all Buster Keaton biographers do not believe his story. No, sure conjecture on my part, but McDermott did shoot.

[00:49:50] He shot like one week including the whole opening color section, which is pretty technically complicated with the transitions with the car and everything. It's got the whole thing with the car, right? I like the car transition. Oh, it's very cool.

[00:50:02] And with something that was like orchestrated by Buster planned out this whole gag on a technical level, but this other guy had to direct it does almost feel like maybe Buster made the first week of filming as complicated as

[00:50:15] humanly possible break this guy where it's like well, this is the one section will shoot in color and it's like a very complicated technical thing where the car has to keep on landing at the exact same space to have this guy be

[00:50:24] like, you know what fuck it whatever go off do your movie now that sounds so fun to like if you know, you're going to be successful to be like you have one week to be a little stinker and break this person's spirit, right? Oh man.

[00:50:37] I wish I was meaner. That'd be that sounds so fun. Also, they're not going to shut the movie down like there's a there's an audience for Buster movies. He's got to deliver to a year. He thought he could put this thing on the fucking rails.

[00:50:48] No, no now Buster wanted Marion Nixon to play. Okay, his sweetheart character's name is Mary, but she was busy filming a movie called Letterbuck. I just that I just had to say that aloud. Can I just throw out the name of these these old silent movies? Letterbuck.

[00:51:06] I hope it shows up to for letterbox. Please. Sorry, which was a Western starring someone called Hoot Gibson. Hoot Gibson and Letterbuck. Yes, a rodeo champion who transitioned to silent movies. I just love back in the day where they were like, I don't

[00:51:21] know what movies are going to be maybe rodeo stars should be in charge, right? You know, do you think people responded to that the same way we do now where it's like, did you see this fucking Paramount Plus movie starring a TikTok star? Right. That's our Hoot Gibson.

[00:51:36] Hoot Gibson. Obviously culturally where there's an ongoing conversation where we're reexamining things especially as they pertain to gender roles and such, right? Okay, and you feel like increasingly people are trying to phase out boyfriend and girlfriend these gendered terms.

[00:51:54] I've always had a problem with partner because it feels so formal. Feels too businesslike. It sounds like you have an S-Corp with someone. Exactly. And I'm just realizing, everyone should call everyone a sweetheart. My sweetheart. My sweetheart. My sweetheart. That's nice. That's fucking gender neutral.

[00:52:10] Don't yell at me. David! I don't care what you do. Call your wife your sweetheart. No. No, thank you. I do. I had someone who called me their partner once and I was like, that's got to stop. Yeah. That's got to stop. I like the intention behind it.

[00:52:23] Yeah. But it's chilly. It either feels like... It feels a little... and not for everybody. If partner worked for you, great. Absolutely. For me, it felt very businesslike. Yes. It felt like we're splitting every bill and it freaked me out. Right.

[00:52:39] Some people try lover, but I always find that somewhat of an option. That's too much. You're telling me too much. And significant other is a little too long. You want something a little snappier. Yeah, when you're saying significant other now, it feels like you're being euphemistic.

[00:52:51] My significant... I'm like, all right. All right. I like sweetheart. Fine. Go find yourself a new sweetheart. Buster's got a sweetheart at the beginning of this month. Troll Tinder for sweethearts. I will. Looking for a sweetheart. Looking for a sweetheart. Yes. Just a Buster looking for his sweetheart.

[00:53:05] That's a very chilling Tinder description. Yes. I agree. That would make me throw my phone in the ocean. Ruth Dwyer is the lady who plays Mary. Okay. She had a long career. Yeah, she like had a talent agency later.

[00:53:21] Yes, they operated the Ruth Dwyer agency in San Francisco. Because she married a talent agent called William Jackie. But yeah, she's good. I mean, we do mostly find in these Buster movies, the female roles are limited like that.

[00:53:38] They you know, like it's hard for harder for them to pop. We're gonna get to it, but it is kind of a damning thing where you're like, Brown Eyes is probably the best screen partner he's ever had in any of his movies. No, I was like wow.

[00:53:51] In performance, in amount of screen time given, narrative agency. Not a dig to Brown Eyes at all. No, Brown Eyes is great, but you're like there is no female co-star who is so lovingly like sort of. Buster Keaton is

[00:54:05] so much nicer to Brown Eyes than he is to any other woman he encountered. Right, you're like this is his most romantic film. It is and I think that it's I mean the chemistry is clearly there. Undeniable. It's beautiful. Once again, this isn't backhanded.

[00:54:17] You're like it says a lot about how good their dynamic is, but yes, this is sort of the more off the rack. Right. She's and also she doesn't get to do anything fun in this movie. I feel like because all the action does not involve her. Right.

[00:54:31] Buster makes this movie. He thinks it's a disaster. Yes. And they have you know, he didn't like the climax. Insane. Well, he felt like he didn't have an ending. Right. Oh. And this movie is basically I don't know why he didn't like no, whatever.

[00:54:49] This movie is basically 40% climax, right? It's like 60% set up for the climax, which is one of the most incredible sustained set. The climax is amazing, but I like that. It's also bifurcated that like he's showing you all this

[00:55:00] very subtle little humor that he can do in the first half right all the little comedy and manners stuff. Yes, and then yeah, you just blow it out for the last part. You get 500 ladies and bridal veils, right? Which is seeing him off a cliff.

[00:55:13] This was the whole selling point of this movie like it that was sold as if it was like Tom Cruise tying himself to the plane, right? Where it's like you're going to see 500 women chase Buster Keaton at the end of this film. Like everyone knows what they're buying.

[00:55:25] It is literally 500 women. They hired 500 women. Throw me in there. It's absurd. That is I mean it is I feel like I think you're totally right Griffin that it's like he's not the guy who does stuff. He's the guy who stuff happens to right but it's like he

[00:55:37] can still do it. I feel like it shows some like range. You don't absolutely and but it is it is telling that like it feels like the second half of the movie. He's shaken off all the requirements of the source material

[00:55:49] and now he's like extended chase sequence in which I no longer have any agency and everyone is just doing stuff to me. Nature is turning on me and I'm just trying to survive. I wonder how much the script changed from the I'm

[00:56:01] assuming considerably from the stage because he blows through all like seven chances in the space of like two minutes. The whole I thought the whole premise because that's the whole thing. The guy's like, all right. Well, let's go to the country club. What do you know here?

[00:56:15] Let's set up so he goes after the thing is thrown to him and it's like well great. I got a sweetheart. I'll propose to her and then when she realizes oh, he's doing this just because of he clumsily is sort of like and this is great.

[00:56:29] What a relief to marry someone today might as well be you fun underlining on the title card. Yes, like I get it. I get it. He saps all the romance out of the situation with someone who would love to marry him and in the process is becomes

[00:56:40] totally turned off by him. Right and so he goes with his partner and his new lawyer friend with the world's most sour puss to a country club. Yes, and his partner identifies his partner is just like who do you know write it down right and he writes down

[00:56:54] seven seven women. So he's like he got seven chances. Yes. So I like Jamie figured right? That's the rest of them the structure of the movie. It's got pilgrims down exactly seven courtships and they'll all go elaborately wrong each eight minutes a new chance.

[00:57:07] He just whiffs all of them. Yeah in a row. Yes, and then in various funny ways, but then I also love that like even the hat check girl is like forget it, you know, like like even he tries anything this this hat check girl is fucking striking.

[00:57:22] Yes, I was if what's her vibe is fascinating aside from the fact that she's like beautiful. You're also like she's not giving a comedy performance. She just seems like some cool mean tall lady. I mean, I believe her name is Eugenia Gilbert.

[00:57:37] Yeah, I want to point out the fifth chance is Barteen Birkett. Okay, who is his romantic interest in the high sign his short film? Yes, and another one is I forget which one is fatty or buckles wife Roscoe's wife. Yes, Roscoe are buckles. Why I'm sorry. Yes.

[00:57:54] No, I know you're right Doris or the fiance. I should say Doris Dean. Yes, who is the second chance? Gina Arthur is also the receptionist at the country club. They the you know, yeah great Frank Capra star, you know,

[00:58:09] what I'm a million different but he blows through the seven chances so quickly and then basically he gives you a bonus seven where the guy is so desperate that he's just throw in like swings anywhere. He can you get the love that sequence? I thought it was great.

[00:58:23] Oh, it's so funny. Yeah, this is yeah. I kind of love this almost as much as the avalanche and all that stuff and I feel like that's part of like what I don't know what makes Buster Keaton so fun is like he'll just let

[00:58:35] someone like laugh in his face. That's great. Most most movie stars will not let you laugh in their face not without some sort of like protective infrastructure. Yes. Yes. Yeah, he can be completely nice. He's got no ego and his partner see this is the problem with

[00:58:50] the same partner in a romantic situation. So I'm like this guy is a part of his partner literally the name of the character is his part. Exactly Thomas Barnes. Yes, Roy Barnes. I got confused when I looked at that on the Wikipedia.

[00:59:01] I was like wait, what were they were they using that then his partner and his sweetheart partner? Yes, who I do love that these movies the character names are just like our hero her dad friendless. Yes. Well friendless one of the all-time great character names,

[00:59:17] but there's that scene where he's like Jesus Christ. This isn't so fucking hard. Let me show you and his partner goes over to like try to propose to a woman and she immediately is in right and

[00:59:28] then he's like no not for me for my friend and then he points to old snitch. Yeah, who gives the look. I cheered. Yes. Oh, it's I cheered too great. Great. That's the other thing snitch is like just doing his job.

[00:59:42] I need to track down this grandson and like tell him the terms of the inheritance, right? But then he just stays he gets so worked in he becomes the third like friend, right? Right and snitch is now just like.

[00:59:54] Can I get the runoff like I want that for snitch right? Snitch basically hopes that the first chance will go well. So he has a shot with the remaining six chances if this was like an eight-wheeler and not a six-wheeler.

[01:00:09] I think snitch would get a lady or whatever. There'd be some subplots. Yeah, snitch's character is and it would be like I don't know snitch's character is pervert coded but in a way that I found delightful in the 20s way of like, you know, what

[01:00:24] do I supposed to do about this guy? He's a real ankle starer. This is our snitch. This is a movie. I very faintly remember because I saw it on a plane over 20 years ago when it came out, but you guys know this was

[01:00:36] remade as a new line rom-com with Chris O'Donnell and Renee Zellweger. No, called The Bachelor. Yes. I remember The Bachelor of course. It is a direct remake. It is credited because it has it ends with him being chased by all the ladies. It's the same premise. It's yes.

[01:00:51] If he doesn't get married. Oh my God. And I find it already Lange plays the snitch role is my memory. That's okay. So it's 1999. Oh, wow. Okay, the century ended. Yeah, Chris O'Donnell stepped into the role of The Bachelor.

[01:01:11] I can tell you that already Lange plays a character called Marco. Okay, and the Ed Asner plays a character called Sid Gluckman. I think he's the grandfather possibly Mariah Carey also appears to be in this film. Interesting.

[01:01:23] My memory is that there is a deathbed scene and with Ed which Ed Asner says to him is his final words. I will give you this amount of money if you marry someone you have to be The Bachelor. Yeah, here they and so Renee is his girlfriend.

[01:01:37] His sweetheart. And okay, but the poster is. They similarly advertised this movie as. He's trying to Buster Keaton with his head. An insane choice. Really taking a big swing on Chris O'Donnell. This is the thing with Chris O'Donnell. Yeah, anytime he was put in a movie after Batman.

[01:01:55] You're kind of like what were they thinking and I'm like, well, what's he supposed to do? The poor bland glass of milk. He looks nice. Right now he's on season 800 of NCIS Los Angeles. He's doing great. He's found his spot.

[01:02:08] But it's just so funny in that era to not be like we should remake this with Jim Carrey. Right. We should remake this with Ben Stiller. You would think that Jim Carrey but Jim Carrey probably was

[01:02:17] smart enough to be like I don't need to do a Buster Keaton remake like that's cursed. That's looking into the snowman behavior. Yes. To do it with someone who's more of a romantic lead than a comedy lead was a bizarre choice and my memory was also like

[01:02:33] that was sort of Renee had been kind of quiet post Jerry Maguire and that was sort of her comeback movie. Yeah, Marco. I'm trying to figure out who Marco R.D. Wink's character is. Yeah, it looks like he's just kind of the friend or whatever. He's the sidekick.

[01:02:49] But as in Seven Chances after he strikes out with everyone. Yeah, they put an ad in the paper basically saying if you marry this man by 7 o'clock, you will be a millionaire. You will share in his fortune and so show up to the church. Yeah in bridal wear.

[01:03:11] Which honestly is not necessary. One does not need to wear a veil to get married. That makes for a good visual and also maybe remember how frequently newspapers were published. Evening edition. Yeah, absolutely right. Evening edition. They've got they've got full copy. I read the whole article.

[01:03:27] All he needs is a bride. I just I mean and then I learned what his grandfather's name was it was Jabez Shannon. Well, wow Jabez. Okay, can we go through some of just before we get onto the chase some of the quick rejection gags at the Country Club

[01:03:44] because we were talking about Jimmy were you were you a mad magazine person? I was a light mad magazine. Okay, and I didn't have a lot of access to them. This is obviously post Buster and I have to imagine it was

[01:03:59] some influence but Sergio Argonas the great cartoonist one of the all-time great. No, he's still alive. He's the one who just died. He just died. He of the fold. Yes, he did. Sergio Argonas is one of those guys where you're like, how is he still alive?

[01:04:12] He's still alive. He's still working. He's 85 years old. Yes, he's good for him. But he used to do these it would be called like a mad look at and it was his style which was so beautiful and it would

[01:04:24] be like three panel strips of like a mad look at the DMV and they would never have word bubbles and so it would all be this kind of like behavioral physical comedy of some misunderstanding of like a basic everyday situation that

[01:04:39] people understand and I feel like this sequence is a lot of that because you're not doing like buster stunts and gags. Yeah, you're doing like him following the woman up the staircase immediately walking back down. You're doing him going in the phone booth and coming out

[01:04:53] and saying like wrong caller, you know, there's the great gag where he likes how's up next to the woman reading the newspaper and then she folds the newspaper down. You see she has the baby. What's it? I mean you obviously end it with the gag where he feels

[01:05:08] like he's finally found a bride and he finds out she's a Little girl. Yes, which was such a like a weird Clara Bow moment where you're like, oh, yeah, this 24 year old woman is of course 11 but I think it's almost it's kind of funny as a commentary

[01:05:23] on like a lot of his other stars. I was like, man, like who does he think he is? But also chaplain even at that time a hundred years ago work the bag a lot of these girls were kind of like infantilized. Yeah.

[01:05:38] You know, you have like little QP doll bow in your hair and it's like with the with the bow right? The whole thing is oh, it's like a 22 year old who acts like an 11 year old where to call it out is kind of funny

[01:05:47] to me even if the gag is a little uncomfortable. No, but it's a comfortable from the right side of the face self-aware enough. Yeah, when they handed her I mean unless I was like misunderstanding the self-awareness of it when they handed her like the baby doll.

[01:06:00] I was like this is clearly an adult woman. Yes. Yes, I liked it. Yeah, they still do that over in the CW. Yes, make 30 year old women act like little baby. Absolutely. Yeah. Yes, and I'll watch it. Yeah, you know the Bachelor still exists. Of course not.

[01:06:16] Yes, not Chris O'Donnell. What if you made Chris O'Donnell the Bachelor though? They should do as a callback. Yeah. Okay, they put the ad in the newspaper and also of course parallel to all this Mary has been sort of persuaded to

[01:06:31] reconsider and written a note agreeing to marrying Jimmy. Yes, her mom. I was trying to like I mean, I guess I was just like really clinging to this scene because I was like, oh, let's let's see what happens between the mother and daughter but I wasn't

[01:06:43] clear on whether the mother was like, oh you should give him another chance because that because she just she should or because she wanted seven million dollars. I would prefer an evil mom. I think it's the former.

[01:06:55] I think the mom is like you guys just need to talk to you know, she's stressing communication, right? She's like look he was weird. It's not it's fine. I don't think she's after the money. But this is the thing I wish you were. After her daughter's happiness.

[01:07:06] A thing that I think this movie taps into in a good way is like as someone who has spent the majority of the last four years being violently single the thing that people such as the people who co-host and produce your podcast say to you all the time

[01:07:23] is just like well it happens when you're not looking for it, right? Oh kill me. Yeah, right. You get stuck in this catch-22 where you're like I would like to not be single and it's like well when you're putting that out there people aren't into it, right?

[01:07:35] So it's like this guy has a girlfriend the second he's like I need to get married. He totally turns her off the second. There's like this desperation. He cannot get anyone to give him time of day, but he's just like radioactive.

[01:07:48] I can relate with spontaneously breaking up with someone because they emphasize the wrong word in a sentence. Oh, of course. So I do see where Mary's coming from. The underline was placed incorrectly. He hit the sum all wrong. But I do like...

[01:08:01] But it could have been a discussion. I do like that like in his seven chances, his strikeouts, it's less like he's fucking up really hard and more like no one wants to touch him. There's the great bit at the end where when he thinks he's

[01:08:15] finally like panned out with the woman who turns out to be the little girl. The other seven women have all ganged together and are just watching him fail and like applauding. They become friends through hating him.

[01:08:26] He really should have, I guess he only has the day to do it. He really should have like branched out, taken a walk around the bar or something. To a second location. Yeah, yeah. It is such a fun nightmare scenario to watch play out for and

[01:08:38] he's so good at like being humiliated for a second, but then just walking out of the scene and continuing to do the thing. Not realizing that he's basically becoming like West Elm Caleb or whatever his name was in real time. Oh my god.

[01:08:50] They're all sharing notes, you know? Yeah. Meanwhile, everyone who has laughed at him has started a union in the last 45 minutes. Yes. And they're like marching for like, it was such a fun sequence. I'm like, I have to assume that is the entire play squeezed into 10 minutes.

[01:09:10] I think basically. Yes, certainly the play did not have an avalanche sequence in it. No, and that's a shame. It should have. It's so funny to think about. Phantom of the Opera style every night just caved in the ceiling or something.

[01:09:22] It's so funny to think about like buying plays in particular. Like I understand they were adapting like great works of literature in the silent era. But to be like, here's a hit farce from Broadway. These things that are so dialogue based, right?

[01:09:37] And you're like now you're going to like translate into a medium where you have to cut the dialogue down to a minimum. I feel like this movie has more intertitles than most of his features for that reason.

[01:09:47] And then he's basically like, let me do like an abridged version of the plot for like 30 minutes and let me do some Buster Keaton shit. Right. But initially they couldn't figure out any good chase gags. Apparently they faded on the chase. Yes, like in the middle of it.

[01:10:01] Yes, the he the first test screening apparently the audience was also not really that into it, but the audience did laugh during a point where a few rocks dislodge dislodge and rolled down the hill with accidentally.

[01:10:15] And so he was like, let's go back and throw so many rocks down. Yeah, like let's let's boost up all the rocks. That'll be what we do. That's the great fucking like Buster chain of cartoon logic where

[01:10:28] it's like, you know, he goes to the church in defeat, right? I failed. Yes takes a nap in a pew. I really like that. Yeah, but he's going to the church just as like this is a place of mourning for me. Right?

[01:10:38] Like I can just be sad here and they all start showing up. You see them slowly come in. They're all holding newspaper with his face on it. They're sitting next to him. It takes a moment for anyone to even realize.

[01:10:46] Oh, this is the guy then they start like fighting over his hand then they start swarming him. He runs out you get this amazing fucking wide shot. This like God's eye view shot of the street where he is slowly

[01:10:59] walking away and the mob is like just growing and growing and grow him behind him and it just never ends right the way that that scene is paced is so if I weirdly I was thinking about at the end of Titanic where they pull out and everyone's dying.

[01:11:15] You're like, it's that but with brides but like how does I don't know just like watching how he paces his performance in that scene to to match with the shot is unbelievable. He holds off on running until the last possible moment trying to just be chill.

[01:11:30] Yeah, and then it's like he's sort of like picking up the pace. He doesn't want to make it. He wants to play oblivious and then you get into this like now it's like a running of the bulls now. They're following him everywhere, right?

[01:11:41] They're invading everything but then there's this point and you have the great gag where they walk by the man building the brick wall and the women all each grab a brick to attack him and so they deconstruct the brick wall but then a certain

[01:11:56] point he like shakes them but he's still stuck in this chase sequence because like now bees are after him now boulders are after him like now the whole world is just trying to get him and this thing with the boulders is like insane. It's so good.

[01:12:13] It's so scary and they hold those shots for so long. Yes, it's terrifying. It's I mean, it's I don't know how he does any of this stuff. I mean, he says when I have a gag that spreads out.

[01:12:24] I hate to jump a camera into close-ups, which is sort of the classic Buster thing, right? He has this very sort of wide screen filming style that is very conservative in a way like it doesn't really mess with anything.

[01:12:38] He just lets you watch these very long takes but I just feel like most people just would not be able to do that. Right? No, I have to cut into it because like they can't actually run a hundred boulders for a camera without dying.

[01:12:50] The only cut that I think I like notice that felt there was like during the tree jump. There was some sort of cut or maybe I was watching the wrong YouTube. No, no, no, no, no, there definitely is. Yeah, he jumps onto the tree.

[01:13:02] Yes, and then whatever then we did this gag where the tree just goes right because they probably go from a real tree to a rubber tree. I cut rubber tree this other quote here that JJ pulled up. I like long takes and long shot close-ups hurt comedy.

[01:13:16] I like to work full figure and then JJ put in bold all comedians want their feet in which is such a good way of putting it but that like when you get to the point where which is clearly the reshoots where they've now created all

[01:13:29] these paper mache boulders and they have like 800 of them and they're all like Indiana Jones and down the hill and he finds that sort of like little alcove in the hill where he can hide and the boulders go over him and it's just holding

[01:13:42] on that angle for so fucking long and you're seeing them like narrowly miss him and then they start to build up and they're getting closer and closer to his head and his back is turned and there's no cut and you're like he's just

[01:13:54] hoping that none of them hit him. He doesn't know how many have built up. No, it's so crazy and even as a director it's like well, he can know what they planned but by design he's not looking in that direction. Yeah, he doesn't know what's visually happening behind

[01:14:09] him and there was I can I watched that scene a couple different times and there's like three times where it really does seem like there's inches between getting yeah. Yes, it also feels like the boulders have become sentient like the boulders feel like the bees or whatever where

[01:14:24] they're like circling him. They're trying to get him. So good. And then yeah, and then just Chris O'Donnell. They didn't hit him with the boulders. No, no said he's sort of like and it looked like San Francisco to me. Yes, he's in the streets of San Francisco.

[01:14:42] He jumps on a bus at one point even the best movie that takes place in San Francisco in 1999. No, not at all. Probably Georgia the jungle. Yeah, absolutely. Great answer. You know what? That's someone who could have fucking done this. Oh, yes.

[01:14:54] He if you had done 99 right around there. Yes. If it's that exact same movie, but it's Fraser and Zellweger. I mean look this movie looks like a dud. I maybe even Brendan couldn't have saved it. But Brendan has more Brendan Fraser.

[01:15:07] Yeah that time has more of the Buster Keaton thing up here just sort of like what is this guy? Like his face is so interesting. But also similarly had that thing where it's like you're really hot and yet I can believe that it takes people a

[01:15:20] moment to realize. Yeah, you're romantically viable because he's genuinely weird. Yes, like yeah, right and he had that like odd sort of man-child innocent thing but like just this movie is directed by someone called Gary Seinor. It's just not a thing. That's not true.

[01:15:37] It is Gary Seinor doesn't exist. I don't know what to tell you the Bachelor. Let's see how much money you made 36.9 million dollars these days of a movie for grown-ups made that kid would be shooting confetti in the street.

[01:15:49] Yeah, there's a maybe it's a Wikipedia hoax the Gary Seinor thing Gary Seinor Gary Seinor media hoaxes, but then you just have the wrap-up ending where he finally makes it back to his sweetheart and he realizes he's missed the deadline by like five minutes.

[01:16:03] Yeah, she's been sitting in I mean, she's like stationary for most of the movie, but she comes back. I just can't align basically like what's about to happen in my life is so miserable. I wouldn't want to bring anyone else into it.

[01:16:16] I said I was just assuming the ending was going to be they don't get the money. They like each other anyway, they're going to be fine. Yeah, so I was kind of annoyed where he's like no, no, don't marry me.

[01:16:25] Yeah, and he leaves and I get his argument of like, yeah, I'm about to you know, be putting a debtors jail or something and then of course the real twist is the watch was fast. We can get married to be rich. Yeah, which is fine.

[01:16:38] I get you want to send everyone out on a high note. I get it, but I still felt like Mary didn't get quite enough of like oomph at the end. No, because she has the agency to say like I don't care about

[01:16:48] the money right and instead she's just kind of like, okay, the money kind of ruined this whole thing, right? Let's get that whole fucking problem. It's why you were being chased. Her only like agency moments are pretty like immediately

[01:16:57] undercut both times where the first time she's like, well, no you if you want to just marry someone then don't marry me, fuck you. And then two seconds later her mom's like don't be a bitch Mary, go talk to him.

[01:17:09] She's like, okay, I'll go marry him right now. And then she's like I don't care about the money and then it's like well you're getting the money and it's like, okay, well fine. I mean, I thought that there was when did I mean, I don't know.

[01:17:20] I'm like I was I didn't go into this movie expecting a transformative feminist text. Sure, sure. But when did I had like a national treasure thought at this point where I was like, is it going to be a daylight savings time thing? But I don't know. Oh interesting.

[01:17:36] When was daylight savings time? When did that start? David over when did daylight savings time like big like when did America adopt daylight savings? Yes, and did it ever really end? Well, no, what do you mean? We still do it. Don't we try to vote?

[01:17:50] Yes way all the time. Well, the Senate almost apparently almost by mistake voted to outlaw it. Yeah, and everyone was like, yes enough of this weirdness. Yeah, but then it never got any further or whatever wish they would.

[01:18:05] Well as a parent I will say it is especially for a young child is very annoying to deal with that because kids do not understand that time is now shifting right like shouldn't yeah, because it shouldn't the United States adopted daylight saving in 1918.

[01:18:18] Okay, so it's brand new at it would have been topical would have been a great. Yeah, great twist. It almost feels like that could be the setup of an entire Buster movie is like daylight savings and it's a guy who's

[01:18:29] off by an hour on everything and his movies are an hour. Yeah, it would be perfect. Right one hour wrong extra hour. He's existing out of time. Yeah, let's play the box office game for this one. Now. Okay, good. Smart like right.

[01:18:43] Is the absolutely so mark Jamie you may remember we play the box office game. We you know, try to guess the top. I remember where I was in 1997. I think about what was playing at the multiplex and you might think like oh, it's 1925 surely.

[01:18:57] There's no box office data for this. There is wrong. Where is it? I have to load my Kindle and Jamie. I just I need to warn you. I've been killing these five out of five know the mall. Wait, what was the name of a potato and potassium Potemkin?

[01:19:17] Yes, that was it. I don't know. Yeah, it's like you find these movies where it's like, oh yeah, you know the nation's favorite like Yiddish comedian is mixing it up with an Irish comedian. It was a double act. That was Irish comedian Jewish comedian and I want to

[01:19:31] buy the remake rights to do it with Barry key again. Oh, that would be I think we could be the new potash and Potemkin or whatever their names are. That's it's something like that might be public domain at this point.

[01:19:41] It was certainly is so this film opened in March 1925 Griffin and release and it's on my list. It's charting. It's opening big who to $60,000 humongous number two at the box office. Not number one though. Not number one number one a holdover.

[01:20:03] No, the number one is also new fuck and it's got a great name. It is a lost film. Okay, we cannot watch it anymore. Hmm, but you probably still know it right? I assume is it London after midnight. No, I'm joking. There's no way you would know this.

[01:20:18] I was directed by Henry King a famous director Oscar winning director. Okay of the early years an adaptation of anything. No, it has absolutely bananas name. I don't know. I there's nothing there's no plot here. It starts Alastair in or Orville Caldwell and so you must

[01:20:34] know that the answer is don't mind if I do sack cloth and Scarlett sack cloth correct and scarlet and Scarlett here they are. Oh sack cloth is a guy. I guess so. They look cool. Yeah, he kind of looks like a spaceman. Yeah, don't know what that's about.

[01:20:55] No, that's number one. Okay beating out seven chances by $2,000 tight seven chances opening number two. Now the next movie weird to think that $2,000 was a difference of like 5 million people. Right? Right next movie is a romantic comedy. Okay, looks like sort of a high Society romantic comedy

[01:21:14] starring Doris Kenyon and Lloyd Hughes. Okay, of course. Yes, it's got a great title. It's called keep your gloves on the Los Angeles Times said it was well above the average in many of its scenes. Huh? That's on the poster.

[01:21:26] Yeah, and the Los Angeles Daily News says that it tugs at the heartstrings and the poster says, of course, it's a first national picture. Wow. The film is called if I marry again. Hey, okay. I almost could have guessed that title probably could have

[01:21:42] yeah starring Doris Kenyon and it looks like you know, she's gonna figure it all out film critics wrote then or is that genuinely a very light endorsement above average in many scenes? I can't tell if it's a neg or not. Yeah, it's a little above average.

[01:21:58] I don't know. What do you want from me? All the reviews I've been reading from these Keaton films at the time are like that right there like ultimately a film that plays in front of your eyes. Well, it's just like when you watch like sports footage

[01:22:09] from the 50s. Yeah of someone doing something absolutely insane. The announcers are like yes, and he's done it and the Boston Celtics will win like, you know, like they sound barely excited about something, you know, above average picture.

[01:22:22] Film was always in the camera and running at the right time. He has vaporized a man with his baseball. All right. Okay. Number four is a comedy based on a play. Okay, starring Richard Barthelmus and Mary Hay. Is it a play?

[01:22:40] I would know is it a play that's still in? Oh, but it was written by Oscar Hammerstein the second famously later became a great composer. Now the poster says it's a picture not to be missed. Okay, and of course it's a first national picture.

[01:22:55] Once again, it's called new toys. Wait a second David. You didn't even let me guess I was going to say new toys. Oh, you're right. You got it. You turn the screen around before I even had the chance to tell you I knew it was called.

[01:23:06] I'm not gonna get these. What's your toys about? That sounds like my kind of movie. Let's see. It's a guy gets tickets to an amateur performance from his fiance as she sails for Europe, but then she he falls in love

[01:23:15] with someone else and they live in a Harlem flat and have a baby but then the old girlfriend comes back. And there's sort of a love triangle and then it looks like someone might have killed themselves, but then everyone is happy at the end.

[01:23:30] Now that's a new toy. Number five. Stink like a toys in that fucking plot. So maybe the kid has some toys. All right. Number five is a comedy lot of comedies based on a musical. Okay that we know no starring Colleen Moore. Colleen Moore.

[01:23:52] It's about a girl from a foundling Asylum who's a dishwasher in Paris. Okay, but then the Duke of Czech or Govina made up country are there Genovia? Yes, exactly meets her and I guess he's sort of trying to slum it.

[01:24:07] It's kind of like, you know, he's pretending to be not rich and they fall in love but then you know, it turns out he's rich, right? I think it's called from soap to silver. It's called Sally. Wow. This is a first National pick.

[01:24:24] Okay, what was your first national the Disney of their day or they just like an opening the box? She's got a classic flapper haircut. I was like, I just love her hair. I guess that the coat check girl. She has the most severe flapper hair. Yeah.

[01:24:37] Yeah, it feels sharper than the norm. Yes, she extra wouldn't fuck Buster Keaton. But that's what I like about her. And in fact, when you Google seven chances, she's like the first picture that comes up. I think that scene is just sort of seared in people's memory.

[01:24:52] She's also so much taller. Much taller. Yes, like she's so intense looking. I'm into it. She's got this great necklace that like goes all the way to her legs. Uh-huh. I have this thing sometimes where I like I watch a Buster

[01:25:05] Keaton movie and I'm like, oh my God, she's so pretty. I have such a crush on her. And then I remember like she probably died seven decades ago. She is so dead. I have definitely had that feeling with these movies where I'm like, everyone is dead. So dead.

[01:25:19] Everyone. Couldn't be more dead. Even the babies are dead. Really? For even the babies are dead. That's true. A hundred years old. They're dead. The people who saw these movies in theaters are dead. It's always chilling to find out that like, I mean, especially

[01:25:31] when you're younger that like a formative crush of yours is dead. Yes. Like there. I had a huge crush on Carl Anderson in Jesus Christ Superstar. He played Judas. Yeah, and my mom had to like break the news to me that he just died.

[01:25:46] Yeah, like it was just he died in 2004. I remember his hot damn. I have yeah, and he wears that orange suit. Yeah, the jacket. Yeah, this is very cool. I remember having that experience when I was young with

[01:25:58] Vincent Price and my mother having to tell me that Vincent Price died and it felt really spooky because I was like watching Vincent Price shit all the time and I was like Vincent Price one of our greatest living entertainers. Right?

[01:26:11] And my mom was like he died 18 months ago and I was like it feels like something out of a Vincent Price movie. He's been dead this whole time. I, a six-year-old, have been watching Vincent Price. A dead man? This is a walking skeleton.

[01:26:23] Is that what you're telling me? All right, let's talk about Go West. Okay. His follow-up to Seven Chances was supposed to be The Skyscraper. Which this thing sounds so cool. In which he's working on a skeleton structure of a skyscraper above the ground.

[01:26:37] There's a girl up there with him. Her old man doesn't know this. There's a lot of stuff with elevators and then there's a strike where the boys walk off the job and then him and the girl are like stuck up.

[01:26:48] That's the premise of the movie basically is they get stuck up at the top of scaffolding and can't figure out how to get down. Wasn't that a movie that came out last year? Yes, what was it called? It was called like Up. Fall? Yeah.

[01:27:02] Was it Up or Fall? I think it was called Fall. Something like that. It was called Fall. There's a Pixar movie called Up. Yeah. I forgot. The Rock also made his skyscraper movie. I just like it. This feels like a comedic diehard.

[01:27:14] It feels like a cool, you know, landscape to use for bits and it feels like very 20s too. It's like skies that was happening all over the place. And he gets so much good material out of like him fighting against modernity like being kind of terrified by technology

[01:27:29] and shit like that. Apparently they just couldn't crack the ending with that one. So they never did. They never solved how he gets down. Right. The technology did not yet exist. But it was, where's the story here? The writer, it was supposed to be Robert Sherwood.

[01:27:44] Who eventually wins three Pulitzer Prizes for drama. Apparently. At this time was just a Life magazine critic. Right. Apparently ran into him years later and Keaton like comes up to him and he says, don't worry Buster. I'll get you down out of there.

[01:27:58] And then that's the last time they ever talked. Well, he said every time we saw him, he would just say like I'm gonna figure out how to get you down from that element. We'll do it. Right. Okay. Never solved it. Sounded like a cool movie.

[01:28:08] So instead he comes up with a simple premise. What if I dress up like a cowboy? Correct. So someone said in our Reddit, I think like the thing that's great about the Buster Keaton movies is every one of these titles feels like a perfect layup for a David.

[01:28:27] What if there was a blank? Oh, I love what if there was a blank. Right. What if there was a wife? Right. What if he go West? What if he went West? What if there was someone who went West? Right.

[01:28:39] So, okay behind the scenes what's going on right now. Josh Genk is getting wooed by United Artists, which is of course Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks and Mary Pickford's artists own studio. He's there. They bring him over eventually UA is going to distribute

[01:28:56] Buster Keaton movies as a result, but not these, not this one. No, this is still part of the Metro. Yes. Yes. No, no Golden or Mayor. Does Metro? Does Metro? Like the trains. Yeah, but that does mess up Buster's life.

[01:29:12] A lot of his writers start getting loaned out. Yes because of it. So when he's doing go West, he doesn't have his usual stable of guys. He's basically had the same team since the shorts on almost all of these. I have a glaring lack of schnitz as well.

[01:29:28] I mean, there is no schnitz. Stood out to me. I'm glad schnitz comes back. It does show up again. It's a damn shame not for Jamie though. Not Jamie, but you know, we can we can check in with you later. Yeah, if you want to get on schnitz.

[01:29:43] No, the big co-star here is Joe Mitchell. Gene Chavez were the main three gag writers he had on the previous features and then the two new people. He sort of fills in the room. Brayman Cannon who was an actor who then became a gag man

[01:29:58] slash love to be a scenario and Lex Neil. Sure. It was a childhood friend. Yes, but the big casting job on this movie obviously is Brown Eyes. This is has to cast the cow right played by a cow named Brown Eyes. Yes.

[01:30:14] Now this is what I love about this movie where he basically it feels like it gets at this thing of like when we talk about his weird inscrutability, right? How hard it is to read Buster in any scene. It feels like he realizes.

[01:30:30] Oh the only person who could really like hold their own comedically with me on screen is an animal who is incapable of speaking and impossible to figure out what they're doing incapable of ego to write right and yet what a performer incredible.

[01:30:44] I mean, I love when they cast non-actors in acting roles. Yes, and I'm an amateur actor. Yeah, Brown Eyes huge. She was a beautiful creature says Buster. She did not appear to be any more intelligent than any other Holstein cows.

[01:30:58] So they trained her he would lead her around the studio on a rope. He would feed her carrots and other culinary delights for the bovines. That's how he puts it. I never had a more affectionate pet or a more obedient one.

[01:31:10] After a while, he could walk through doors Walker past bright lights only difficulty was when he sat down. She would try to climb into his lap, but he'd like spent months with Brown Eyes of just like my big swing for this

[01:31:20] movie is I'm going to get this cow to feel so comfortable around me that I can do anything and it works. Well, but do you know what happened? No. Oh no, they get there. They film this movie in Arizona. Correct the first week. She's acting bizarre.

[01:31:34] Oh, yes, suddenly. It's like she was so obedient. She followed him anywhere and suddenly she's like not doing anything. I think they bring in a doctor or vet to take a look. They brought in a rancher. Yes.

[01:31:45] Okay, and he said your cat was in heat and she won't be any use to you until she's over that she's got to get some and she will not be able to focus on work until she does and so they had to wait 10 days.

[01:31:56] Here is the quote from Buster Keaton and it is a juicy of a quote. Uh-huh. This is as good as Rosaria Dawson referring to her shaved vagina is the general. Yeah, which came up in our trance episode right the idea

[01:32:08] of how daily expenses would mount while we waited for that cow to get her mind off sex was dismaying. We had selected her for her unusual beauty and striking markings. She had been in too many scenes to start looking for another whole scene to double for her.

[01:32:22] I did the only sensible thing I ordered her let out of the corral so she could find an affection and empathy loaded bull for herself. I didn't read that quote wrong. It just felt like affection and empathy loaded bull.

[01:32:36] Yeah, he was just like a cow got too horny and they had to stop the movie. That's so great. But Buster was like fine go fuck a bull. It's fine. I get it. Look we're all the best for her. He wants an empathetic bull to fuck.

[01:32:51] But the funniest thing to think about is that you got Joe skank who's like in the middle of this career transition, right? He's jumping to this big studio, right? And he's getting fucking like memos. He's getting like telegrams or whatever that are like Buster

[01:33:08] movie on day five of shutdown. How has still not gotten any you know, his quote was that's Keith for you. If there's a costly way to make a movie, he'll find it like he was resentful of like, of course the Keaton movie shut

[01:33:22] down. So this cow can fuck me cast the horniest cow in Hollywood, but they just the whole cast and crew just waited in the desert for like a week until the cow came back and was like chain-smoking because he's been building this relationship with this cow for months.

[01:33:36] Yeah, that's I mean, I love it. I love it. I did not I didn't either. It's so funny that rocks there is I mean, I feel like Buster Keaton pulls off successfully what many people on dating apps are trying to do with like by leading with a picture

[01:33:54] of them and their dog. Yes, they're trying to be like I can I can build something here. I'm like that. Yes, right. That's not even your dog and I can tell yes, and anyone can do that. You see a friendless man walking around with a brown cow.

[01:34:08] You're like there's something going on here. Yeah, there's a lot of friendless is wandering but not everyone has you know the connection with the brown eyes. No, so here's just set up for this movie. This guy's name is friendless. He has no direction in life. He's a drifter.

[01:34:20] He's got a picture of his mother, right? It's about it. He tries going to New York. He gets trampled. I do like that. It's just five minutes of him being like the big city is too big for me. It's a little too East.

[01:34:30] It's such a good reveal to have you see like crowded hubbub New York City Street and then they cut in closer and you realize he's underneath all the people. It's funny. It's good. And so he's like another train.

[01:34:41] He sees this sort of vision of the statue pointing to go West right and sells his whole life. He sells everything for just the big salami. Yeah, and it's such a good. It might be a really good salami. I guess, but it's everything.

[01:34:57] Biggest fucking salami I've ever seen just wrapped up right in like wax paper or whatever and you see the passage of time is conveyed only in how much salami he has left as he's riding the rails and the salami is going down and

[01:35:09] things are really dire and he gets off and then the movie goes. Yeah, put him in some fucking chaps and I'm like immediately funny immediate just putting him here on a ranch around animals. I think I like about this movie a lot too.

[01:35:25] I think all the other actors in this section are really good. They underplay it greatly. They play it very straight like they are in a traditional Western Howard Truesdale plays the owner. Yeah, but no one is sort of doing like pantomime me jokey kind of stuff.

[01:35:43] It's like no these actually look like sort of like sandblasted, you know hard-living ranch hands and Buster doesn't belong here. Cowboys. Yes, they're Cowboys. They shot and they shot the film in real cowboy country to I think you know, there's some you know, some gritty realism to that.

[01:36:00] I liked that Horace Greeley was the inciting incident to this. It's just so like he sees the statue of Horace Greeley. Yes. He's like, all right cool. I'll go where he's pointed. Yeah, I liked man. I did a ton of research on Horace Greeley a couple years

[01:36:15] ago because he believed in like talking to ghosts cool. And so I was like, yeah, I mean he's maybe not the best guy who's advised to take he does believe you can talk to ghosts but you know worked out fine for friendless.

[01:36:27] He made friend some other Horace Greeley facts. Of course. He actually coined the phrase go West young man. So I guess that's why he's being paid homage. Right, but I think of him mostly because he was the presidential candidate for the Liberal Republican Party in 1872.

[01:36:41] He lost to Ulysses Grant, but he died before the electorate like he died in between the election and the inauguration so he got zero electoral college votes. They had to instead just sort of throw him the other people. Yeah, because they couldn't give him to a dead guy.

[01:36:56] Yeah, that's wild and the spiritualists were trying to get in touch with him about that for some time. To throw your votes to Jim Smith brown eyes. He's one of those guys were like I know he was very rich

[01:37:08] and very successful yet when you look at him, you're like is he just like a homeless wizard? Like what is this? He's got a very weird look this sort of wispy hair. Yeah, well, weirdly look like the kind of guy that Buster Keaton would listen to.

[01:37:24] Let's also remember that America did recently elect a president who is a self-proclaimed genius with bizarre hair when you talk an incredibly normal vibes. Wonder what Buster would make of that guy? No. Okay, so brown eyes. Anyway, so he's yeah, he's on the ranch.

[01:37:43] He's there's a whole bit with barrels on the train car, which I kind of enjoyed. Yeah, and then there's the milk scene, which I think is really funny and I just love the energy of him constantly trying to earn the respect of these other men because it

[01:37:59] feels like the woman in this picture is kind of drawn to him almost immediately, but he's so obsessed with being seen as a genuine cowboy. They're all those sequences where they're all sitting around the table like drinking and eating and the second he sits

[01:38:12] down they leave, you know, right? He's just not macho enough. It's almost like made a joke of like how I mean, it's like she is the love interest of the movie, but there's like that big joke at the end where it's like he obviously cares

[01:38:24] more about brown eyes and being a cowboy than about this like shoehorned in love interest. Yes. He seems kind of indifferent to her. Yeah by and large again. I'm just like maybe that's part of the appeal of Buster Keaton who knows really hard to get. Yeah.

[01:38:40] Yeah in spite of like he's so tired, you know, yeah, he is tired. He's tired and indifferent sign me the fuck up, but he's so he's so fucking good with this. How are a blanket? Yeah protects her from dogs.

[01:38:54] Yes, and but I guess it sort of becomes like it adds to his uncoolness. The cow is his friend right because this is a place that I mean the cows have to die. He reminds me a little bit of Cody Schmidt McPhee in

[01:39:10] power of the dog right where everyone's just kind of like what's this guy? Why am I doing here? This is Montana man. Yeah, I like that. He's kind of like he goes from City Slicker to just being obsessed with the cow. Yes, right.

[01:39:24] He like it's is going out West with the dream of fitting the archetype of like the classic movie cowboy and instead he becomes this weird cow free. I really I feel like the strongest. I mean, I really strongly emotionally responded to when

[01:39:39] tenderly removed the rock from hurt from his hoof. I was like, oh, I loved it. They did a close-up in spite of the rules. No, but you had to see it. That's him knowing like when is it like super in fact impactful to cut in close?

[01:39:55] Yeah, and it works. Yeah, there's that saying from this time of like drama happens in a close-up comedy happens in a wide shot. Sure, and it's like he's cutting into the rock from the hook because that's drama. That's the saddest moment in the movie.

[01:40:09] There's also like a little romantic theme that will play when brown eyes is on screen. Sometimes there's like a little like it just gets it's the most romantic the move the music got to me. Yes was when they're together.

[01:40:22] What's with the music is sort of it's hard to know what the actual music was for these. There is no actual I found a copy of seven chances on YouTube. Yes, when I was checking for something and it had a techno score.

[01:40:36] Yes, someone had put like electronic music over. Yes, I guess you can do anything. There was no cool. Yes, I who did he did that? Yeah, that's a cool guy. There was no definitive like score intended for these movies at the time.

[01:40:49] I maybe someone would be a guy with a piano. Yeah, right. I guess that'd be a fun job and now it's like seems like I did you know, like basically if you're watching it online through like legal means renting buying physical media streaming

[01:41:03] services, whatever you're almost always seeing what is it? They're basically the two different restorations. One of them is I think the baloney reservation restoration one of those lobster films and Keno releases one of them and coin media releases the other one.

[01:41:19] Yeah, I'm sorry you blew through that like it was regular. I'm sorry there. I'm sorry the difference between the well, it's just because these things are like $40 a pound. Okay. Okay. What? How many points know these movies are all public domain?

[01:41:35] So the only things that copyrights exist for our specific restorations and scores and so you basically have two different like art house media companies that have bought the rights to different European years long do the whole catalog restoration

[01:41:50] and they all they both have piano guys with big mustaches who are like this is my score. I'm Chris the baloney score. Right and then yes, none of that lobster business and then some of like the public domain ones that float around YouTube

[01:42:01] because I was looking for copies and some of them are like a really high quality YouTube upload, but it's silent right and you're like, oh there must have been a copyright over the music right DMCA claim or whatever. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:42:17] It's like when you get a weird tick-tock that's silent right go whatever this was right and then the ones that are on YouTube are basically like complete like royalty-free someone was just like I don't know. Here's like some fucking thing, but it does make these films

[01:42:28] interesting to watch because your experience can vary wildly based on the quality of the restoration and especially the music. The cut I watched whoever was scoring it clearly thought that you know, Buster Keaton and Brown Eyes were very much a lot. It worked for me. Yeah, correct. Yeah.

[01:42:47] Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Well Brown Eyes is in trouble throughout this movie because she's due for the slaughterhouse. Her milk is dust. So they're gonna chop her up. She's in the trenches. It's a rough life. Being a brown cow in Arizona. She's got the old dusty tip problem.

[01:43:09] And so then what do we have? We have the card game, which I really like with the tiny gun on the string. Yes, but also what's the great bit here? The great bit is this is basically referencing a thing from a popular movie of the time. Hold on.

[01:43:24] This is in the dossier, but there was some other Western where the heart of Maryland. Yes, and oh, do you want me to read what the bit is? Okay, two guys are playing cards. Yeah, I don't know. I mean look Maryland was the Wild West back then.

[01:43:37] No one guy calls the other a name. He takes out his six shooter and lays it on the table. Yes, when you when you call me that smile and Buster, of course doesn't smile in his movies, right?

[01:43:50] So we thought if you did that to an audience the audience would be like, oh no Buster can't smile. He's gonna die. This is a reference that everyone will get from a popular movie that came out recently. And if you put this character in that exact same situation

[01:44:02] with the same tee up suddenly their life and death stakes because here's the guy who's incapable of smiling, but I also think it's like the whole setup of the scene is like everyone talks about Buster Keaton's deadpan, right? Here's a guy who basically has perpetual poker face.

[01:44:17] Yes in the face of danger put him in a dangerous poker game. He becomes so inscrutable that it drives everyone else insane. They become furious at him. It is the one scene where he almost becomes high status, right? Because people are so enraged by not being able to

[01:44:33] read him and him physically trying to force a smile on his face because he can't do it. And when this movie came out at the time he was like, oh no, they're so worried for me. They're not laughing. Right, right. It's actually too stressful.

[01:44:48] No one felt it as a comedic premise. They were like he's gonna die. He can't laugh. He can't smile. Wow. Yeah, but I think it's really funny. I think that's great. Yeah. I also think the tiny gun on the string is funny. Yes, tiny guns are funny.

[01:45:01] Oh, I mean the baby gun. He keeps trying to shake it out of his thing. I do like hearing what his reactions to because it's like not even stuff that registered for me, but you're like, oh yeah, if you came up in vaudeville, you're like, oh my

[01:45:14] goal is for people to be laughing hysterically for hours and without stopping. Do a lot of test screenings and recut things and do reshoots He was like working his shit like fucking Judd Apatow recording the audience and then syncing up the laughs or whatever.

[01:45:29] I'm making up that part, but yes, no, it's also just so funny to think about like, yeah, this feels like the movie where he's starting to understand. Oh, the Buster Keaton persona is so well established in the public's mind that I can riff on it where they start

[01:45:44] to fill in the jokes themselves of going like, well, if you put Buster Keaton on a ranch, this is what would happen. Right. I don't have to sell any higher concept than that. What else happens? I mean, much like this movie amounts to an extended chase

[01:46:00] scene where the bulls chase him through the streets. A lot of business with the bandana. Yes, you know stampede of a thousand steers. What else happens? I like the cop escalation joke where one cop comes in is like there's 500 steer out there and then it eventually

[01:46:18] reaches a million. You're like, all right, I'm laughing. Right, right. He dresses up as a devil, of course, which I really like that because I also think like it's a black and white movie. Yes, he's got to find something red.

[01:46:29] Yes, the whole audience is going to get that this costume is red. Yeah. No, it's really clever and he looks funny in it. He does. He's a little stinker. He's a little stinker. The best. That is like the little stinkiest he gets out of these

[01:46:40] two movies for me is running around a little devil. He looks like the one in Cow and Chicken. He is an adorable little devil. He does look like the devil from Cow and Chicken who I have not thought about in a while. His tush.

[01:46:51] He bounced around his little butt. Yes, that outfit was also my brother's first ever Halloween costume. Really? Very cute. Little stinker. Little devil. But yeah, yeah, the cops, there's the whole thing with the hoses, which is pretty fun. There's less, I mean, the stampede is impressive, but

[01:47:09] there is less sort of like one incredible set piece that your like mind is blown by. No, I think I do like he does though is shit like the barbershop where it's like he's acknowledging the larger reality of it's not just that this many bulls are chasing

[01:47:25] after him. This would affect all surrounding areas. They're like interfering with other businesses, you know? Right. Yeah, I definitely preferred that. I was more nervous for the stampede of Steer than... They're scary than rocks or brides. Yeah. So just like...

[01:47:42] Right, and you're also just like these are real. Yeah. Yeah, I was like these are really... I mean someone, I'm sure someone did get hurt, but you know, that's fine. Yeah, probably. It's allowed. It's fine. People got hurt back then.

[01:47:55] And now everyone who was in that movie is dead. Well, this is... As you mentioned, they're all doing the babies. Everyone is dead. Yes. Except maybe Brown Eyes. Maybe she's still kicking the immortal cow. I like to think she's around there somewhere. Maybe she was in First Cow.

[01:48:07] Here's the quote that's bizarre, right? So his thing is like, I'll wear the red suit. I'll get on set in front of these. Guys and they will chase after me. And my job is just to let them get really close without actually hurting me, right?

[01:48:23] But the comedy will write itself. Basically, I put on that suit. I thought I'd get a funny chase sequence. Have the cows get a little too close to me, get scared, then really put on speed trying to get away from them. Like just do it for real.

[01:48:33] Right, but I couldn't do it with steers. Steers wouldn't chase me. I actually ran and had cowboys pushing them as fast as they could go. And I fell down in front of them and let them get within 10 feet of me before I got to my feet.

[01:48:44] But as I moved, they stopped too. He couldn't get them to chase him for real. They're pros. They piled up on each other. They didn't mind a stampede at all, but they wouldn't come near me. Well, that kind of hurt when you think that's going to

[01:48:54] be your big finish chase sequence. We had to trick it from all angles. Interesting. So I think it does speak to like he thought like, well, I'll just fucking let nature run its course and maybe didn't plan this out as well as he did the end of Seven

[01:49:06] Chances. It doesn't quite feel seamless. No, because I think he was like the bits will come to me. I don't need to fucking write gags here. Yeah, and the stakes will be real and they could not get them to fucking chase him even in The Little Devil soon.

[01:49:18] Maybe Brown Eyes was just looking out. She didn't know she was talking with the movie. He's the star of the picture. He's top of the call. She he gets her week off to have sex. Please don't hurt him. I would just I want that. Yes.

[01:49:32] I want to read that on deadline soon. You want to show that happened on Aquaman 2. Exactly. It's just like I'm too horny. Right. Momoa could not focus. I need a week. I gave him a week. Right? Yeah. And and they're like, yeah, of course, of course, of course.

[01:49:44] Yeah, Jason. Jason, do whatever you need. Yeah, go shake it out. Yeah, I'm in a heat. I just love it. Do you want to play the box office game for go West? This one is you might get okay. Okay, because these movies I've heard of interesting number one.

[01:50:01] This movie is opening number five at the box office and it was a success to be $600,000. Okay, it's opening to 50 grand little less than seven chances. Okay, number one of the box office. This must have hurt by the way.

[01:50:16] There's the review that JJ pulled up from Carl Sandburg. Yeah, poet. Yes, although the theater is at times explosive with Hardy Gaffau's go West may not be the funniest thing that sour face Buster's ever done but it is by far the most enjoyable bit of humor.

[01:50:31] This writer is seen from the Keaton fun factory final line. This comedian comes close to the Chaplin ask in his serious comedy that must have fucking stung. That is tough to get Sam body by Sandburg like that, but

[01:50:45] also to throw out Chaplin ask is like I'm giving you a compliment and he's a contemporary. Well, who's number one at the box office right now? Charles Chaffin and what's the film 1925 silent comedies starring Charlie Chaplin would this be the gold rush. It's the gold rush.

[01:50:59] Hey, look at that. Look at that. That's the one with the potato shoes. Yes. Yes, the little dance. Just a little dance. Yeah. Yeah, it's good. Yeah. The problem is he did fuck those potatoes off. The gold rush is crushing it. Yeah gold crushing.

[01:51:17] It's made almost a million smackers Jesus. A lot of Western. Yeah, the Avengers endgame of its time. Yeah, it is true. It's also a prospecting movie and just gold obviously not how you're also you're getting to the metal Westerns.

[01:51:30] You're getting to the Western tropes are so well established that people can riff on them now and mock them number two at the box office. Now you may not know this one, but it stars a very famous female star. Comedy star drama star verse verse verse.

[01:51:48] I would call this sort of a dramedy drama. She is one of the founders of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and United Artists is Mary Mary Pickford considered one of the most recognizable actors in history. Yep, this film sees her playing a girl.

[01:52:11] I'm Mary Pickford ragamuffin. Okay, if you will yes with a cute name. I'm gonna guess it's called Little Ragamuffin. You are close. It's called little Annie Rooney. Okay, she's an Irish girl living in New York slums. Yes. Wow, this movie is 95 minutes long. It's an epic.

[01:52:32] Okay, the longest film ever made and you know, Mary Pickford, you know, sure. Big star. I don't know. She was the princess of the Bowery. I just love all that stuff. Yeah, but I got muffins right? You love a ragamuffin. All right, I do.

[01:52:47] I think I've said this before on the show but like fucking vocabulary quizzes when I was in middle school and they give us this workbook with like 30 new words. We had to learn each week. You have to write them down on note cards and use sample

[01:52:58] sentences and all this stuff and I hated it. It was like the most tedious fucking thing. I remember sitting at the family dinner table working on this and just blowing up and being like, what am I even doing here mom?

[01:53:08] What am I ever going to use the word ragamuffin in my life and I use it once a week now. I think it's the funniest word. It is forever burned in my brain. I am so happy.

[01:53:17] I know it and it's the one I made an example out of. How about instead of sweetheart call it, call it a little ragamuffin. It can be a little condescending. A little pejorative. Yeah, that's true. It's technically pejorative. But you know, it depends on the ragamuffin.

[01:53:34] Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. Number four at the box office. Now this film stars Adolphe Mangeau. You would know because he is in Paths of Glory and he's in Gigi or is it Gigi or something else? No.

[01:53:49] So, you know, he was like, he played a fancy guy in more modern movies. Yes. And but this is him as a young man. Okay, he's playing a king from another fake country, Mulvaney. Yeah. Oh, okay, who comes to conduct business and then ends up in

[01:54:07] Coney Island and meets a cute lady. This one's great. And then they have a whole romance. This is like fucking original coming to America. Yeah, exactly. That's what it is. It's original coming to America. It's directed by someone called Monta Bell. Okay.

[01:54:20] I wonder if this takes place when they still had the brothel that looked like an elephant on Coney Island. That, why did we ever get rid of that? If you go to one place for one day, it would be there but only for like 10 minutes.

[01:54:30] Jamie, let's bring it back. Let's bring it back. It was called Elephantine Colossus. Yes. People are fucking in that elephant. And now Joey Chestnut, that's his stomping grounds. It's great. Hey. Yeah, have we talked enough about hot dogs on this?

[01:54:43] We're going to get back to it after this. I have some things I want to say. The film is called. The film is called. Oh, okay. You don't have to guess. It's called King and Coney Island. Very close. It's called The King on Main Street. Okay. Wow.

[01:54:57] Love that. Getting closer. Most interesting thing about this film. It has Bessie Love, the female lead, does the Charleston screen and it made the Charleston the hot dance. Wow. What's the Charleston? It's a very complicated dance. It does this, you know. It was the biggest part of it.

[01:55:16] It was a fucking phenomenon. It was, it's hot stuff. Yeah. What do you think of the Charleston? I'm a fan. Rules. I love the dance. I love the chew. Chew's good. Yeah. All right. Now, number five, number four, number five is Go West.

[01:55:28] Number four, however, stars another silent comedy star. We've got Chaplin in this top five. Is it a Harold Lloyd? It's a Harold Lloyd film. Okay. I think it's one of his most famous films. Is it The Freshman? It's The Freshman. Look at that.

[01:55:41] You got two out of five on this one and one of them is Go West. So really got three out of five. Yeah. Harold Lloyd. He's a freshman, right? Yeah. He's going to university. Uh-huh. I don't know what happens in the front. I haven't seen The Freshman.

[01:55:52] You seen it? Yeah, and then Preston Sturgis did a sequel. That was one of Preston Sturgis' last films. Really? Yeah, he did a years later like a sequel. Are you serious? Yeah. What's it called? I've never seen it. What's it called? It's not called.

[01:56:05] It's called The Sins of Harold Diddybrook or whatever. The Sin of Harold Diddlebrock. Yeah. I don't fucking know. Don't make me say these words aloud. Yeah, 20 years after his triumphs as a freshman on the football field. He's now a mild-mannered clerk. Still with Harold Lloyd. Wow. Yeah.

[01:56:21] Well, that's the box office game. So let's go west. What a great time we've had talking about these movies. What were your hot dog thoughts? Jamie. Yeah, what's going on? You got Raw Dog coming out, your hot dog book. Yes. The definitive hot dog book.

[01:56:34] This is now going to become the definitive text on hot dogs in America. If so, there's a guy named Bruce that's going to be real mad at me. Well, Bruce can go fuck himself. That's what I'll say. Which just to be clear, it's a book where you're...

[01:56:45] It's nonfiction, but it's also... There's... You're in it, right? There's a lot of Jamie in this book. You're traveling across the country. Yeah, it's like there's... I drove for... My ex and I drove from LA to Boston and then back in a different direction.

[01:57:03] Tried hot dogs all over the place. And then there's also chapters on history of meat production. There's a lot about Joey Chestnut and professional hot dog eating. There's... I sort of followed the Wienermobile around for a while.

[01:57:18] I went to a place called Hot Dog University, which got cut from the book. So you'll just have to ask me. But yeah, there's a lot of hot dog stuff. When I was in high school, my father became deeply entrenched in the world

[01:57:32] surrounding the IFOCE, the International Federation of Competitive Eating. Oh, you don't gotta tell me. I know. I'm just telling you for the listener. Uh-huh. Those guys were around. What used to also now be called Major League Eating? Yes. Yes, the Shay Brothers. Oh yes.

[01:57:46] All of these people were around a lot. Not the highest level, but like a Badlands booker now mostly known as Badlands Chugs. Incredible. I believe... I don't remember if it was during a 4th of July hot dog eating competition. It was a different competition.

[01:58:02] My sister who was like five or six at the time gave him like a bracelet that she made out of like some like klutz jewelry kit that he wore at like his next four matches.

[01:58:13] My dad just got all in on this fucking thing and would hang out with these guys all the time. How did he get into the community? They're so impenetrable. He had a friend who was friends with... Someone who clearly tried to penetrate this community.

[01:58:25] Are you familiar with Crazy Legs Conti? Oh, yes. Because he legally changed his name to Crazy Legs Conti. Yes, and Crazy Legs Conti was like an East Village Weirdo staple, which I grew up in the village. That's scandalous. Oh, wow.

[01:58:38] And Conti was the bridge through a friend of Conti's and my dad just got so into all of this fucking shit. It's pretty incredible. Yes. And the Shea Brothers are like pretty evil. Yes. Well, that was kind of the thing was there was...

[01:58:53] My dad was sort of like, why has no one figured out how to like scale this and make this work? This should work. And like this is at a period of time where there's shit like BattleBots blowing up on TV. Sure, right.

[01:59:04] Yeah, why can't you make good money off of this? And you were like, the only thing that gets coverage is the hot dog eating competition. They basically have two officially sanctioned events per month at least. This was like 20 years ago.

[01:59:16] This is like 2003-2004 was like the peak of his... Still like Kobayashi era. That was the thing and Kobayashi was like a phenomenon. And you would look and you're like all these supporting characters are fascinating. All these guys have like really good ginning. Sonia Thomas. Oh my God.

[01:59:32] Who they called the Black Widow. Do you know about Sonia Thomas, David? No. I don't know. She's like, I think my favorite person in the hot dog eating. Did you get to meet her? I met like almost all of these people. You got to meet the Black Widow.

[01:59:44] Yeah, like Joey. I never met Kobayashi because he would just fly in for the one event. Right. Kobayashi is somewhat mysterious. He might obviously know. Yes. He's somewhat mysterious, right? And he really pioneered the splitting, the dunking in water, the sort of the methods. He's everyone.

[01:59:58] I feel like I'm like every single person including the Black Widow and Joey Chestnut just started doing professional eating because they saw Kobayashi on TV and like just he was like the blueprint. He's so amazing. Did you see the 30 for 30 about it? No. Oh, it's really good.

[02:00:13] I may be misremembering this a little bit but I forget what the Shea Brothers their main jobs they would travel. I don't want to say they were traveling salesman, but they were like something. Sonia Thomas is a Black Widow was like a woman in her like 20s who

[02:00:28] was like 5 foot 1 and like 100 pounds. She managed a Burger King on a naval base. Yes, like yeah, and then there was a period of time where she was a truck driver, I believe and one of the Shea Brothers was traveling

[02:00:41] stopped at a road stop like diner and she was there with like 18 plates scarfing them down and he was like, who are you? What's your story? And she's like, well, I drive and I don't want to take breaks. So I just have one meal every 18 hours.

[02:00:56] Oh my God, and I eat all of this and he was like, you're a star Most people would be like I'm calling right hospital, right? But she was fast and she was just like, I don't know. Yeah, I guess my stomach's just like this.

[02:01:07] I wonder if that the Shea Brothers are such liars. I hope that happened. I do too. Believe them as far as I can throw them and I could throw them really far. It was incredible. Very big. No, no, and they sort of would dress like Buster Keaton.

[02:01:19] They'd have like a little waistcoat and a fucking straw boater hat and shit. Yeah, they kind of have been sort of PT Barnum exploitative energy. Is that what you're saying? Yes, George Shea, especially Richard Shea is kind of a mystery

[02:01:31] to me because I really like his color commentary on yes, the end of her year because he's like really into like women indie stars. Sure last year. He was like, oh man, I just saw Phoebe Bridgers in Prospect

[02:01:44] Prospect Park over and we were like really this guy but I thought you meant a female indie eaters. No, like there was the kids musicians outskirts the AEW of professional eating that he was following right?

[02:01:57] No, he just loves or at least he makes a point to mention it. I don't know like he he two years ago when I was there he was talking about he's like Nicki Minaj's career is on the resurgence and I was like, what is your deal?

[02:02:09] It's just funny that they're kind of like failed Vince McMahon's exactly which is like because George Shea's wife wrote for the WWE and soap operas and that's so interesting what it's mapped on is like it's a mix of that but with regular people. They never totally cracked it.

[02:02:26] No because they're regular people. I don't know. That's what I loved about it though. I love the idea that it's like this is like a blue-collar sport. Yeah, and like battling Booker at the time was like the fucking operating like the 7 train.

[02:02:38] Yeah, and then it was like one weekend a month these guys go in their fucking rock stars and they shove a thousand pickles into their mouth and then they go back to their job. The second place guy.

[02:02:49] I'm trying to get him to come to my book event in Boston the second the guy who it's so funny because he seems so sweet. He's a school teacher in Massachusetts. He comes he's the guy who comes second to Joey Chestnut right now. Okay, and Joey's name.

[02:03:01] Oh God, his name is Jeffrey Esper. It seems like it's going to take a turn but that then it doesn't okay, Jeffrey Esper. He's a school teacher in Massachusetts comes second to Joey every single year and it's so funny because he's so sweet and

[02:03:14] so mild-mannered works his job all year. But then when he comes out he's so clearly the heel of the situation where it's like everyone's booing this 55 year old school teacher. Yeah, because he's not Joey Chestnut and it's fucking awesome. It's like so great. I don't like him.

[02:03:30] He's got to get in there James. You were talking about on the Doughboys episode that you kind of feel like the Shea brothers like sandbag Kobayashi because they wanted like a white American champion and that kind of pushed Joey Chestnut into the position.

[02:03:44] They said that I mean like George Shea has said that and that's that's I highly recommend. And Kobayashi also like came from outside of their league like they didn't have control over him. He would just fly in once a year and fucking win their thing,

[02:03:56] but it's like but the only reason so that I love the 30 for 30 so much because it contextualizes it so well where like pro like the Shea brothers had been failing to make the hot dog eating contest take off in the US in any meaningful way

[02:04:10] for years at that point and it wasn't until Kobayashi came from Japan where there was like well-organized eating contest and it was televised and it was like pretty successful and once he came over and people saw like this like very like

[02:04:24] strong compact like guy who could do laps around had this like wild technical strategy. They were like he's like gaming this in a way that no one else is yeah, and it's like it wasn't the Shea brothers like they didn't orchestrate that they just directly benefited

[02:04:38] it from it. And then all these eaters were inspired by Kobayashi the only like Joey Chestnut who I have such a soft spot for I love him so much. He like saw this Spike TV broadcast of Kobayashi facing off against a bear.

[02:04:54] Okay and losing and then being like, okay, so he's fallible sure I could end like that and then it becomes his life mission actual bear like was being fed hot dogs or a grizzly bear and Kobayashi. There's a video of it. They they competed on TV in like 2005.

[02:05:10] Yeah, and Kobayashi lost and he's a great performer. So he's devastated. It's so funny, but it was also that thing. We're like Kobayashi seemed untouchable for so long where you were like this bear is eating these. I am really into this bear.

[02:05:25] Got a bigger mouth and a bigger belly. Weirdly also the bear has like an American flag behind him and I'm like, I guess we can claim he's not representative but yeah, but it came from the American woods. I mean like George Shea especially is so nationalistic.

[02:05:38] And so then when when Joey Chestnut came in and was genuinely good right then he was like, oh great now I can push the white American champion. Yes kind of screw Kobayashi over in the process. You had this thing for years were like Kobayashi was so far

[02:05:52] ahead of everyone else. But also even though the gap was huge between one and two when he entered everyone else got better. Yes, like the numbers went up for everybody because it was suddenly like he was Jesse Owens like the barrier has been

[02:06:05] broken and he's demonstrating all these techniques that people can copy right? Yes, right, right, right. And then yeah Chestnut was the first guy to basically be like I can go toe-to-toe with you and then since he took over there was something about Kobayashi where he like felt

[02:06:20] like a superhero. Yeah, and Joey Chestnut just... He's a showman too and Joey is amazing but he's not the showman. No, and it just feels like well now there's no tension left to this. He wins every year. Like has it ever been close? So there is okay.

[02:06:33] This is a fun sad thing where Joey has been beat once. I it's very kind of like a joker fine thing for him. I think that happened where he beats Kobayashi. It's very controversial because they're they were so close Kobayashi famously ate a hot dog.

[02:06:50] He had just thrown up into his hand was this the first time he was going to finally be Kobayashi? Yes, okay, and then eventually Joey does yeah when Kobayashi is edged out of the league. It's a lot of the focus on the 30 for 30 where Kobayashi

[02:07:04] was in such a horrible contract with the Shays that they were basically icing him out so he couldn't compete anywhere else. He's trying to get out of the contract and they're like, well if you get out of the contract you can never compete again.

[02:07:15] So he's you know, Tonya Harding's out of the situation. I hate to see that. And then in 2010 I had like it's he's he's such a good showman. He shows up to the contest where he's no longer allowed to compete in a shirt that says free Kobe.

[02:07:29] Wow, he goes up on stage during the contest and George Shea has him arrested on television. What? How do I fucking miss this? It is fucking nuts. Like because this is this remains niche. I know this thing you're talking about. It won't break out of this weird world.

[02:07:43] There were four years of my life where this was the most omnipresent thing in our living. Eat arrested. Yes, looks like I have a free Kobe shirt. Cool as you should. Right as we I mean, whatever they didn't press charges, right?

[02:07:59] They just kind of got it was totally a show arrest. But yes, so Joey wins for a while and then there is I think it's 2014. He's like cocky to the point where he proposes to his girlfriend at the contest on TV.

[02:08:13] Fuck man, and she's also his trainer question mark unclear what that means. But she says yes, and it's like ah the king and now the hot dog Queen right then which you're jealous right? And I was like not not of getting to marry him but of

[02:08:27] having the title hot dog Queen but also kind of getting to marry him and so you're like that could be me. It's not sure it that's fine. But you she's intense Nestle Ricasa and turn the turn the David. Let me say turn the laptop around. I don't know.

[02:08:45] Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, go ahead. But then between 2014 and 15th, they're supposed to get married a few weeks before the contest in 2015. Okay, she calls off the wedding and and because it's such an like can't be exploited of kind of narration style.

[02:09:04] They mention it constantly during the 2015 contest as it's happy to try to build in the emotional stakes of this is a man scorned Richard. Yeah, Richard Shay is really doing the WWE thing, but he's like for Joey chestnut, you know, he's not getting married.

[02:09:18] He's back to flirting with the girls at Panera bread, but seems like you might get it but he loses. Okay, seemingly out of despair. He has the heartbreak year. Yeah, and a guy named Matt Stoney who's like a famous eating youtuber who I don't think competes anymore, but

[02:09:36] he wins and then between 2015 and 2016 Joey chestnut goes Joker mode and he like comes back in 2016 like doing 15 hot dogs better and never loses again. Yeah. Yeah gives up on love but he but then he gains the super hurt human ability and they never got back together.

[02:09:55] They didn't he appears to be dating someone now, which unfortunately I know because I check of course. Yeah, no just to know. Yeah. Yeah, but look you you may still claim the title Queen of the hot dogs when this book comes out. There's hope for me yet.

[02:10:11] There's hope I found an alternate. You're the queen of hot dogs. Let's call it Jamie. Yeah, thanks guy. Jamie Queen of hot dogs loft. I think when is the book out? What is the exact date May 23rd? So the book is out in two days. Yeah, baby.

[02:10:26] We timed this perfectly timed it perfectly and it's a time so well that you were here in New York and you actually got to do in person. This is this was so awesome. Yes, and you got to see Blank Chick Studios drink it in.

[02:10:35] Yeah, really I had I had Pandora flakes and everything. Yeah, it was great and see Ben. That's why we don't throw out the Pandora flakes because sometimes our guests want them. Okay times your guest is feeling a little peckish. Sometimes yeah, and you got free chemicals.

[02:10:52] I got free. I love getting free chemicals for my friends. That's great. Everyone should buy raw dog. Listen to Bechdel cast. Yep, and you're on tour with your wrong about doing a bunch of shows. Yeah, doing some book tour as well, right? You're doing some yeah, contact us.

[02:11:07] You're one of the best in the biz and people just follow everything you do. There's there will be a link to get the book in the description of this episode. Cool. Yeah. Great. Great. I don't know why we seem deflated about this.

[02:11:20] Oh, no, I just I just no no Griffin. I suddenly you're like great Ben said it and I was just like how do we do that? And should we have been doing that in the past easy? We have been doing a little hyperlink.

[02:11:32] Okay, easy, you know, it's a code. Yeah, you code blue. Yes, blue and it turns purple. Click it and perp. I know it's not my job, but I just suddenly went into this motive if that were assigned to me what I know how to do this.

[02:11:46] If your job was writing the copy for the episode description yeah all these years. Oh Lord knows what would have happened. I'd still be working on Shyamalan episodes. Yes, I'm almost done. Thank you for being here Jamie. Thanks for having me. And thank you all for listening.

[02:12:03] Please remember to rate review and subscribe. Thank you to Marie Barty for our social media and helping to produce the show. Thank you to Joe Bowen Pat Reynolds for our artwork Lane Montgomery and the Great American Novel for our theme

[02:12:15] song AJ McKeon Alex Barron for our editing JJ Burts for our research giving us some nice tight dossiers. Love these tight dense full of good info, but they're short JJ. JJ's hear me. We like how short they are. We love how short they are.

[02:12:31] We can read them on the subway. Tune in next week for next week. General and battling Butler is battling Butler in the general battling Butler. What a fucking good title this Butler battles and also what if there were a general?

[02:12:44] Yeah, you can go to blankcheckpod.com for links to some real nerdy shit including blank check special features a Patreon show where we do film series and other bonus things. We've just done an episode on Buster Keaton shorts.

[02:12:58] We picked out a bunch of Buster Keaton shorts and did them with our buddy Dana Steven. That's a really fun episode and we're also doing the plane of the Apes movies the classic Apes movies were going ape. We are going to David.

[02:13:09] Yep, we're going to we're going to go to a nearby hot dog restaurant with Jamie right now because I'm so fucking hungry. Walk past it on the way here. You've not tried this place before. No, but I've heard so many good things.

[02:13:22] Yeah, let's go over there because I want to fucking dog. Yep. All right, let's all get dogs. Yeah, and as always we're all about to eat fucking hot dogs such a wholesome ending.