It's the Dearly Departed Podcast, featuring your host, historians Scott Michaels and filmmaker
Mike Dorsey. All right, it's a Dearly Departed Podcast, Episode thirty five.
Can you believe it? Happy Halloween? Yeah, Happy Hallo. I
got my candy corn hat on, dressed for the occasion at the candy that
people love to hate. I love candy corn. I'm one of the lovers.
Do you like circus peanuts too, I don't. I'm not well,
I mean, i'd not like I go out and run out and buy them.
But they're all right. But candy corn, especially if you get them
with the pumpkins, Oh man, those are the best. My teeth hurt
just thinking about it. I wonder if it's like a cilantro thing, where
like some people think cilantro tastes like soap, there's like something about candy corn
that's um. People just their taste buds rejected for some reason. Well,
there was a time, I mean, I when I was I mean,
I'm a sugar head, that's for sure, But there was a time when
I could just eat that stuff by a handful. But then I just you
know, it's like circus circus peanuts. You know, I even look at
when I want to puke. But uh, and the candy corner, could
you know, it's sort of like it's sort of like, well, if
it's there, I have that right right, right, it's not you're not
gonna buy it if it's if you're in line. Yeah, right, It's
classic. And I like the way it looks, you know. I like
getting it when I was trick or treating when I was Hey did when you
were trick or treating when you were a kid? Was it old? Were
you old enough to go door to door or was it already like parties only
at that point? Oh? Yeah, we we I went door to door
all all. My growing up here is even longer than I probably should have.
Like into junior high, we were still going out and getting it.
By junior high, we had figured out that if we went to like the
rich neighborhood, you could get like whole candy bars. Yeah from some people.
Um, you also got weird old people that would give you pennies.
And I got a pomegrant at one year so from somebody, yeah, which
I didn't even know what a pomegranate it was. I was like twelve and
it was heavy. They would they deserve to have that put through their window,
they really do. It was heavy enough. It weighed my bag down.
It was like having a softball in my bag. It was crazy.
But my mom cut it open when I got home so I could see like
the seeds inside, so I got to learn what a pomegranate it was.
So it was a teachable moment. But I'm sure this old lady had a
pomegranate tree in her backyard and that's just what she gave the kids. You
know, Yeah, give me cash, I'll take cash. It's okay.
Yeah, I mean, you can give away pennies, but quarters those can
add up by the end of the day, you know. Um No,
I was old enough. The eighties for everything was scary because they thought they
were putting like razor blades and drugs and everybody's candy. But we were still
doing it. We're still risking. Yeah. Um, I don't think we
introduced ourselves. I'm Mike Dorsey, I'm Scott Michaels and what are we doing?
One of my favorite movies of all time, The Ghost and Mister Chicken.
I never thought there would be enough. I mean, I just love
this movie. And I sort of kind of didn't want to analyze it because
I like it so much and I want to. It's like Sunset Boulevard.
I haven't watched on Tip Boulevards since we talked about it because I like the
movie so much. I don't want to. I don't want to, you
know, like I don't want to see it all the time. I wanted
to be like when you like a song a lot, you don't want to
overplay it so you get tired of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
But but it was fun to watch this thing. I've watched it twice in
the last couple of days, and it's it's just it gets It doesn't get
boring at all. I don't know how you felt about it, but it's
like a slice of childhood for me. And it just looks good, it
sounds good, the colors and everything. It's just it's it's it's Halloween the
way I love it. You know. It's it's not jump scares, It's
not you know, uh people getting there, you know, next sought open
or something like that. You know. I just like the I like the
innocent, very haunted mansion. I've said this before, but I'm a very
Haunted Mansion person. I'm not a Friday the thirteenth person. It's it's fun
spooky. Yeah. Yeah, the Halloween movies, I will feed into that,
though, I will. I have seen them all. I just did
you see the new one? That the new Halloween. I'm not a big
horror guy. No, No, I'm not eager. But I did like
it. No, I shouldn't say that I love I like horror movies a
lot. I do, but I do. Yeah, I mean I like
a psychological thriller. Horror is more my thing, yeah, more than horror.
Horror, right, I don't. I slasher movies out my thing.
Jump scar is not my thing. But there's got to be some kind of
edge to it. And uh and uh yeah so anyway, but I like
the Halloween movie. People are really lambasting it. But there are Halloween purists,
you know, there are Halloween you know bananas. They're bananas some of
the people. And then good for them. You know, everyone's got to
have a passion. But uh but yeah, I don't. I thought it
was fun. I thought it was fun anyway cool I could have this is
I'm cracked open my like, I'm down to about six of these Oh no,
I know, I know, I know they expired over a year ago.
There has to be a plant somewhere like in like Uzbekistan or something that
is still making tabs that you can like get a connection to, you know
what, like how Mexico kept making VW bugs through like the eighties and nineties
even after they stopped making them. You know, the main company, like
there has to be like black market tab. Well, they do have it,
and I guess, I guess it's if you want to keep the patent
or the trademark on it, you got to have it available somewhere. And
there is a cocacoa store in Vegas that sells tab on tab but but no
cans. That's interesting. Um, so you're you're like a tab hunter.
Oh that's a good one name that will come up out in the name that
will come up today in the show, everybody, we are on a spreaker
now. We moved over from pod being with our last episode, um,
and we are on spreaker um because Spreaker lets us make a little bit of
ad revenue. So you'll probably hear a few ads in this, but not
too many. UM. I don't like to overdo it. You want to
go into hate mail. Sure, hate mail. So I've collected some I've
collected some comments and some of them are well, I'll just go into it.
Mister Michaels, I cannot understand what you were saying, and you speak
in such a way that captioning doesn't work. Hire a professional speaker to narrate
your videos. We need to dub over your part of the podcast with someone
who speaks English. Scott. Obviously it's a good one. So um,
all right. So the next one, let's see, this was on my
Jane Mansfield car. I did this whole documentary about Jane Mansfield, and you
have her death car that she was in when she died, right, and
I went to I did the whole thing. I went to, you know,
the nightclub where she worked. I went to the place where they stopped,
the whole route. I drove the whole route, and we went to
the place where the car ended up and where they Yeah, so somebody did
write in which I think is kind of funny actually that when you're when you're
a celebrity, people would keep you keep even your fart if they could.
It's true. It is true. I didn't even know it's just like,
you know, I like that. It was pretty funny. Uh oh.
And also in that same video, Mama Cass also died in this accident.
She was sitting next to Jane eating a ham, eating a ham sandwich and
she chucked to death when the car smashed up. That was clever. So
what killed her? The sandwich or the car? Cran Good question, good
question. Answer that she just got her star on the Hollywood Walk of famecast
Elliot, Dude, isn't that first? Yeah, it's long overdue. There's
a lot of people that don't deserve stars, and it's nice that she that
she did. Yeah, another nice comment. The dead will blight your ass,
Well he's ours, Actually, the DEVI will blight your ours for keeping
that car as a trophy. So I guess they're going to come after me.
Well you know when you get when you're ask is blighted. Now you
know why? Right the divine death room I did? Why give attention to
a not so divine nothing burger? People need to make Jesus their lord.
What some think is entertainment is disgusting. Your divine hotel doors like one of
my favorite things that you have in your collection, scot and the photo of
it on the roof of your jeep is like iconic, that is it's actually
there's a comment about that too at the end of this which I would quite
like. I did one in Glenn Quinn, you know the guy from Rosanne,
the irishman who was died of an overdose. He was Becky's boyfriend.
And uh, you know again, I went through the whole bit. I
went to with a nightclub he owned and everything, And I mentioned went to
where he died, and went back to where he died, and went to
the grave, to the funeral home, in a whole bit. And I
said. The first thing he did was one of his first scenes on screen
was giving Gwyneth Paltrow her first on screen kiss and h and the comment after
watching this video, it's Gwyneth, not Gwyneth. But I did respond when
he said it's Gwyneth, it's Gwyneth not Gwyneth, I wrote, it's douche.
Another comment inside the Divine Death Room, mat Man. The met comments
are the best, that they're honest. The fact that you drove down Sunset
Bull of our Divine's door strapped to the roof of your car's possibly the most
Scott Michael's thing I've ever heard Bravo. Yes, I think that was quite
a compliment. Actually, it's amazing. I wipe I do something Scott Michael
Z one of these days. That was funny. I just never heard.
I just that's it's it's I forget that people even you know, pay attention
to stuff like that. So it's kind of neat to get a shout out
in that regard because it was ridiculous. I mean it was. It was
ridiculous. Yeah, that was We saved it from demolition. Yeah, it's
a good thing. Oh god, we did that thing too. I had
my Dodge Colt and this back when I took George George Burne's door from his
house when he's being demolished the closet. We didn't even strap We couldn't even
strap it down were it was a metal top Dodge called stick shift. So
I'm holding it once a side, driving with my fate, with my knees.
My buddy Stevens got him on the other side, and I'm shifting and
we're driving through Beverly Hills. That was like at like two in the morning.
That was That would have been an amazing accident. To explain Yeah,
honestly, Yeah, that was that. We went back for a second one.
That's the thing. We went through doors. We went back and got
a second one. Yeah, that was a good story. Steve and I
had some good adventures. U. We've had some mostly positive notes from people,
people thanking us for various episodes we did and always recommending ones um one.
A good recommendation was Bethany messaged us on Facebook recommending an episode on River
Phoenix and I wonder if we couldn't do there's a bigger River Phoenix tie in,
something on the Viper Room or Sunset Deaths or something like that would be
interesting. Yeah. I went there. I mean, he's not twenty seven
Club, but he's we could be that twenty three club or an hour old
he was, you know, it couldn't We can't make your own genre.
I mean we did. She was in our first ever documentary ever, did
our first deally Departed Dockwe did that. They're about to tear that block down,
yeah boy, yeah, we should do something with that. We should
just yeah, we should do something something with that block. I did a
little video just walking around you, but it would be neat to be able
to wish we'd get access, you know, to those buildings. They're they're
slowly I mean they're empty. Some of them are already. They're just not
renewing leases anymore. So um, yeah, that makes me too sad for
words. But but yeah, that's a good idea. It was. Yeah,
they're about to tear down the old kmart across the street from the grove,
so you know, nothing's sacred anymore. My mom when she came to
Hollywood in forty seven, took there. You should be a shopping center called
Town and Country on that lot. But uh, but yeah, there was.
I've got a picture that my mom took in forty seven. Whatever,
All right, Uh, shall we get into the main feature. It's time
for the main feature. Do Murder and Calm go together? Calm and Murder,
The Ghost and Mister Chicken starring Don Nutts, the nineteen sixty six horror
comedy film from Universal Pictures, who also, of course did the Universal Monsters
films, which we did a show about and you know in the thirties and
forties, and it was neat because they did shoot it on Universal. I
didn't realize that street was called Colonial Street. I had no idea that that's
what they called it. I've seen that house, that house in a lot
of different shows, and uh, i've see we watched Adam twelve all the
time too, or in Adam twelve and Rock Perot Files, we watched them
constantly, and that house shows up so many times in so many episodes.
And next to that house, it's the Munster's House, and you can't see
it in because it was popular I think at the time, and so they
used big hedges to hide it. But the Munster's House is on right next
door to that Ghost of Mister Chicken House and they were shooting sixty six.
I believe they were shooting munsters, and but that that street ended up and
showing up in UM God it was it was well most probably most completely and
Desperate Housewives they use it as Wistaria Lane, Leave It to Beaver. The
Burbs was another one that they used it for almost into its entirety. And
the plot of the film is there's a mansion called an abandoned mansion called the
Simmons Mansion. That's what we're talking about, UM And yeah, Desperate Housewives,
I believe the same house that's used as the mansion was Gabrielle Soulis's house
on Despero Wives, That's what I read. It was also the down House
in Harvey, which was, you know, sixteen years earlier then than this
film. There was a cool house. And I think it's still there.
Um. Last time was at the Universal Tour. I'm pretty sure it took
a picture of it. I think it's still there. I know the Munsters
house certainly is. It doesn't look like it used to, but but it
is still there. Most of the houses are still on that street. That's
kind of cool. That's cool, you know. And speaking of the Munsters
and the the Adams Family as well, Uh, I thought was interesting.
The music reminded me a lot of the Adams Family. And then of course
I find out that it was written. The score for Mister the Ghost and
Mister Chicken was written by Vic Mizzy, the famous television scorer who wrote the
theme for the Adams Family and also Green and also Green Acres. So there
you go. That's kind of explains the and and this is of that era
as well. Yeah, he did um, he did the he did the
Munsters Go Home movie soundtrack too, really and uh and also well then he
scored uh, the rest of the Donnats movies, you know, like The
Incredible Mister Limpett and the Reluctant Astronauts and um, and uh, there was
one other thing that he did. I forget what. Oh, of course,
don't Make Waves, the Sharon Tate movie, Oh She Hangs on the
Beach. And that's another one of those poppy soundtracks, you know, it's
just it's a great soundtrack. Not the last Helter Skelter reference we're gonna have
today. And also didn't know this, but there was this is way before
your time, but in the early sixties there used to be a psa that
they on television about jaywalking for kids to not jaywalk, and it said it
was a jingle and Vic Mizzy wrote it and his daughter saying it, but
it wasn't. It went, don't cross the street in the middle, in
the middle, in the middle, in the middle, in the middle of
the block. Uh, keep your eyes open and then wait until the light
turns green. So it's look and wait. Yeah. So it was because
I remember they gave us in grade school. They gave him these things stop
look weight things we were supposed to attack on our doors and stuff. But
um, but yeah, that was a that's a catchy tune, don't cross
the street in the middle, in the middle, in the middle of the
middle of the middle of the ball written by Vic Mizzy and he don't go
in the Simmons mansion in the middle, in the middle of the middle of
the middle, in the middle of the night, like when he does when
they opened up that scene with Don Knuts driving and that that cool music.
It is just so perfect though he's driving as like, yeah, because he's
a loser and it's just like xylophone music or something that they use a lot
of in this. I think, um, but an organ, I think
with this organ stuff and yeah, yeah, but but yeah, the ed
sol I think it was a It was a choice, wasn't it. Yeah,
a definite choice. Yeah, because that was considered a bomb, one
of the greatest bombs in the history of automotive history. Um So, people
that don't know, First of all, if you haven't seen The Ghost and
Mister Chicken starring Don Knots, you can pause this and go rent it because
you can rent it anywhere right now for like four bucks. I did.
It was on Amazon, but it's on YouTube and iTunes and wherever you rent
movies at um and the plot of it is, though I'm giving you a
second to pause and go watch it is don Knots plays a guy named Luther
who's kind of a loser, and he's a type setter for the town newspaper
that where he lives, but he really wants to be a reporter, but
nobody takes him seriously. Everybody talks down to him. And there's a famous
abandoned mansion in town called the Simmons Mansion, which had been the side of
a gruesome murder where a husband supposedly supposedly killed his wife and then himself.
And now it's the twentieth anniversary of the murders. And who is that their
son who's returned, nephew nephew. The nephew has returned. He's wealthy,
he owns that match and he's going to tear it down and kind of take
all its secrets with it when he does it. And so don Knot says,
Luther volunteers to go in at midnight to this house and to get a
story basically for the newspaper. And that is in hijinks hijinks and Sue right
right it was there was only a seventeen day shoot right in sixty six.
I mean, that's crazy. I would think that they can kick out something
that we're still watching fifty plus years later. Yeah, they killed it in
three weeks, less than three weeks, and he hired Alan Rafkin as the
director who had directed a bunch of um who would direct did on the Andy
Griffith's Show, which Don Knots of course was in and was coming out of
when he when he did this movie. And part of the reason he picked
Raftin was because he was an efficient television director and they knew we had to
get this done in seventeen days. That's who you hire to do that.
And then Rafkin went on to direct Knots in The Shakiest Gun in the West,
which had the same writing team as this one, and also How to
Frame a Fig. So Rafkin did three Knots movies as director. Yeah,
seventeen days as fast if you Yeah, I mean, if you look at
the down the list of character actors that are in this, they're all like
so many of them are in those movies Frame a Fig, The Reluctant Astronaut,
and there's there's so many and there's so many interesting like connections to different
productions. You know, the guy that did the hair was the guy that
did the hair on Thin Soilant Green, And you know, it's just like
amazing connections. It was like all full of like journeyman actors and writers and
director who were in the middle of Hollywood at that time and did everything.
And they all looked like they were seventy five, and they were all like
in their forties or thirties, you know, But and they all died at
seventy five, but they did. But some of them, there's there's yeah,
but we we actually addressed a couple of those on RP Witched episode two,
a couple of those character actors, but I guess they they originally was
called Running Scared and I was listening to a documentary with Don Notts and when
he started, you know, he was a been triloquious when he first started,
and uh and he you know, he's trying to play it sort of
straight as it was, and then he developed that kind of nervous character and
he tried it out with some I forget who it was that said now,
don't do that. And he was on The Gary Moore Show and he gave
it a shot. Saying, you know, he just did that whole kind
of falling apart, nervous shaking kind of thing, and they really responded to
that, and of course he went with it too, and it was always
there was really a lot of his act from that point forward. I mean,
I don't think he did any of that in Three's Company, but uh,
but he certainly took advantage of and supposedly he was not like that in
real life at all. He was kind of a quiet guy. He was
a bit of a ladies man. Uh and uh, yeah, so not
he was very against his type. In fact, I think originally he was
supposed to be the straight man in the Andy Griffiths Show and Andy Griffiths comedy,
and then by the second episode, Andy griff was like, it's got
to be the other way around. I got to be the straight man and
he's got to be the funny one. So yeah, I mean that worked,
yeah, obviously at work because he won what you said, five Emmys,
yeah, um, and then I think he won like two more coming
back for guest appearances. It's crazy how beloved that that. Um, that
character was the iconic Barney Fife character from Andy Griffith's show. Um. I
also, going back to the title, I thought it's interesting they went with
The Ghost and Mister Chicken, which apparently is a riff on The Ghost and
Missus Muir. But that was This was two decades later. I just can't
believe that that movie was still such a well known hit that they would do
a call back. Well, it was good enough it to start a TV
series a couple of years after this, so they must have. You know,
it must be considered a classic. I forget what you're the TV show
Ghost and Missus Muir came about, which was one of the stars of Ghost
and Mister Chicken was in uh Rita Shaw though the Missus the Banker's wife.
She was one of the stars of The Ghost and Missus Mier. But yeah,
no, you're right, it's interesting. You wouldn't think that that movie
had the launchevity to have done that, but you know, but it did.
I loved, in addition to the music, to the classic kind of
horror sound effects tropes, the hooting owl because he's walking up to the house,
the cats screeching U you know, thunder right on qu yeah, well,
you know, the Oregon music. All of that I just thought was
really funny. Did we talk about this in the in our Universal Monsters episode
about the called the Castle Thunder? I think so it's it's it was the
thundery. They invented this thunder sound effect for Frankenstein, I guess, the
original Frankenstein, and it ended up showing up in like ga jillions of programs
and commercials. I mean they even used in its Star Wars at one point.
It's just this classic thunder that I probably must not have been you know,
trademarked or copyrighted. And uh, and I don't know if they still
use it today, but it's it's you know, it's iconic. Like you
said, it's in The Munsters. It always opened up I think The Munsters
after the theme song with some of that thunder, and uh, it's just
a it was called the Castle Thunder, it was built, it was made
in nineteen thirty one, and Disney used it in a lot of films too,
so it must have been free. It almost becomes like it almost becomes
like the the stand in sound for thunder that we know that thunder sounds like
in movies. I think that's what I think, it's exactly what it is.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, right, what was your What was your
favorite like gag in the movie or a bit. It's got to be the
organ playing, certainly when HeLa fingerprints on the organ. Yeah, yeah,
it's got that whole That whole haunted house sort of thing was was my favorite.
It's just like that's it looked like the Haunted Mansion, and which was
several years before the Haunted Mansion, well a few anyway, so uh so,
yeah, that's it. What about yourself? I love the elevator gag.
The elevator can't stop on the right floor. He keeps going over overshooting
or undershooting and he's just funny. Just step up, step up, yeah,
and then he falls into it, you know, when he goes to
leave. Um. And I also I loved the Atta boy shout, the
running gag of the boy at a boy Luther. I thought that was hilarious.
It almost, I don't know, it almost reminded me of like a
running gag that you would have seen in like peak like Adam Sandler or Chris
Farley, stuff from like the nineties, you know what I mean, Like
a line that I think they read that they used it in Kingpin. It's
something I don't I remember the movie that well enough, but nobody. That's
what I'm thinking of too, and I just don't remember. Yeah, yeah,
but I guess it was the guy who said that was m was one
of the writers. Yeah, it was Everett. It was Everett Greenbaum who
wrote it. He was he was writing partners with Jim Fritzel or Fritzel Fritzel
and they were writing partners also on you know, they were one of the
people some of the people brought over from the Andy Griffiths Show. Um.
They also wrote thirty five episodes of mash later on in their careers. So
did so did you read about this Andy Griffith episode at all, the one
that maybe inspired this movie. It couldn't have. Maybe I watched it this
afternoon. It was like almost it, you know, it was it was
almost really it was almost the movie. Yeah, so it was Andy Griffith.
I think that recommended that because because what happened was supposedly Andy Griffith had
said early on in the run of the show that they were only going to
do five seasons. So don Knots took that seriously, and that's why he
left the Andy Griffith Show when he did to go into films because he thought,
I gotta figure out what I'm gonna do next with my career, because
he said at the beginning, this is only going to go for five seasons.
Doesn't realize that Andy Griffith decided, Oh, actually, I think I'm
gonna keep doing the show, and by then Donn had already said to leave,
and so I believe it was Andy Griffith that recommended that heat. When
Donnas is trying to figure out what movie to do, Griffith was like,
well, why don't you try doing something like that episode of our show that
we did, And yeah, well, I mean I knew that that not
brought Andy Griffith in as an uncredited writer on the movie. So one of
the other consulted with the other. But in the Andy Griffith episode, Opie
and his friend hit a baseball into this old mansion or this old in decrepit
house, and they didn't have the nerve to go into it because they went
up to the door and they heard this whoo and the inside, so they
ran away and they went back. Opie told, you know, Andy Griffith
that this place is haunted, and Barnie was there and saying, oh,
that's you. Know, that's silly. Nobody believes in ghosts. And then
Andy Griffith kind of smirk and says, well, Barney, why didn't you
go out there and get at your help? And there's the the wide eyed
don knots look, and they go into the thing and there's there's a you
know, it's all the cobway. It looks it could be the same set
in black and white and uh and the cobwebs everywhere. And they get to
a fireplace with a painting on it, and the painting has eyes that move
back and forth, and there's a there's a there's supposedly there was a I
don't know if it was ever a murder in there, but there's an axe
and the axe flies around in this episode, you know, and then they
they run, they run away. You know. It was him and Jim
Neighbors. They went in first, and they went back with Andy Griffith and
uh. And the whole point was they were chasing out a bootlegger that was
living in the basement that was trying to they had a still going on and
uh in the basement making booze and UH. So they were trying to scare
people away. So they could keep their still going in the basement. But
one of the bootleggers is Hal Smith owed us the drunk from Andy Griffith,
who is the guy who gets beaned in the head at the beginning of Mister
Chicken. He's like the he's the first person that shows up in the movie.
He isn't even builled and um and he played he played otis the drunk
constantly on Andy Griffith. And he ended up being drunk in this movie and
thrown into jail in this movie, just like he did in Andy Griffith.
So it was like kind of mirrored plots to that to that episode, but
for sure, but it was it. It was just it. I hope.
Summers also was another actor that was brought over from Andy Griffith that was
in this So they had the director, the two writers, and at least
two actors, probably more from the show, probably many more because there was
like they had to do like a whole town of people. Basically, there
were so many actors in this movie. Yeah, yeah, they all lived
down the street, you know, so don knots um He of course most
famous for playing um Uh Barney five, but he was also Ralph Furley in
the second half of the run of Three's company, The Landlord, and he
was also the star. One of my favorite films of his is The Incredible
Mister Limpet which was made a couple of years before this, where he plays
an an animated fish. I loved that movie when I was a little kid.
And then we talked about this guy in an earlier episode. I don't
know if it was one of our main shows or if it was a Patreon
show, but in World War Two he served he was entertainment for the troops.
Basically, he had a comedy duo act with another actor named al Checo
or Checho, who would appear in multiple films of his and uncredited roles.
Incredible Mister Limpett was the first movie that that this Alchecho appeared in. Who
was you know? His Don Knatz's former comedy partner in World War Two?
And then he appeared again in this movie, and he appeared in several other
of his films, always you know, usually uncredited. But Alcheco was wild
because his wife tragically died when she was young. They'd only been married a
few years, and he I don't think ever remarried, didn't have any descendants.
And he lived in the old Age, and he willed his house in
the LA area to Providence Saint Joseph Medical Center in Burbank when he passed away.
He died in twenty fifteen, and the house was donated to the hospital
kind of I think, kind of in her honor, his wife's honor,
so kind of kept the candle burning for her for decades, you know,
after she passed away tragically. So yeah, that was That was in a
Patreon episode because I remember the story. It was an obituary story. Yeah,
Yeah, that's sad. I also thought was interesting Don Knots's mother ran
a boarding house when he was a kid, and his character lives in a
boarding house in Mister Chicken. I don't know if there's a connection there,
if that idea came from his own life. Boarding houses are certainly a thing
of the past, that's for sure. Um. Yeah, he kept working
pretty much right up until he died. He died in February twenty four,
two thousand and six, supposedly kind of issues related to lung cancer. And
his grave marker is amazing. It's like one of the best celebrity grave markers
ever. It's got a bunch of likenesses of his famous characters on it.
It's really well done, including Luther. They haven't done really karate karate.
H. Yeah. There's also a really nice statue of him in his hometown
of Morgantown, West Virginia, in front of a theater. Oh yeah,
in honor of him. It's a really good one. So there's a lot
of really bad celebrity statues, but that's a good one. He was he
Yeah, he had what he was like really quite ill, wasn't he had?
They say you had pneumonia, immacular degeneration. I mean, it's really
it's sad when somebody, well you said he was kind of serious too.
You're more serious than you'd expect him to be. Yeah, you want you
want somebody like that to pute pulling faces all the time, you know,
that's just the way he is. He had a degenerator of muscle issue and
that caused his eyes to kind of not droop a little bit. So he
stopped doing like appearances on screen, but he would. He had a lot
of voice acting the last years of his life. So the opening scene Calvern
Weems, who was half smith owedis the drunk gets being done. The head
by by Hope Summers. Actually she's not the one that hits him on the
head. She sees some unseen person with a board right bang right on the
head, and she's just maniacally screaming, I love it, and so over
the top. And every one of these actors you could, you could monsters
at him twelve Bewitched Green Acres, every single one of these actors have been
on the shows. But she played one of the creepy satanic neighbors and Rosemary's
baby they were raising, you know, Rosemary to have this baby, the
Devil's baby ultimately. But yeah, I just watched her scene today. She's
like, there's nothing to be afraid of Rosemary, honest and truly there's nothing.
But that was the whole fun of those all those old people that in
Rosemary's Baby, who probably were all in this movie too. But um,
she But also she was another iconic bit of television history. She was the
voice of missus Butterworth Syrup on the TV commercials Wow. So she didn't even
get credited in the movie. You know, I had to do like a
dive to find out who who her name, what her name was, but
she was yeah, she then it turns out she was missus Butterworth, So
wow, I thought that was kind of cool. Butterworth Syrup. There's nothing
to be afraid of, no Rosemary. And she died in Woodland Hills in
June twenty second, in nineteen seventy nine. She's seventy seven years old.
But it's funny but that, you know, because they yeah, because don
k Notch. The whole point was he hears her scream murder, murder,
murder, and then at the same time Don Notch just happens to be driving
by in his Loser or furdencil and he wants desperately to be a reporter.
So yeah, so he thinks he's like to murder, and he thinks the
guy's dead, and then it turns out the guy's only injured, but he's
already gone back and told everybody that he witnessed a murder, and then he
gets laughed at when the guy shows up bang right on the head. I
mean, that's that's one of the gags. I love. I love that
when she says that all the time. That makes me laugh. Uh,
and the Bonni Ammy one too, but we'll talk about that, yeah a
little bit. Now. I was just gonna say, how, how how
in the sixties alcoholism was really funny, you know, I mean the Andy
Griffith thing with the still and the basement and they're just pounding you know bottles,
you know, directly out of the bottle, and you know Granny on
the Beverly Hillbillies is always drinking moonshine. Remember north By Northwest, And this
is not the last time I'll mentioned that movie. When he gets that he's
fighting the dui charge Carrie Grant is after they got him drunk and tried to
kill him, and he and his mom goes something like, just pay the
five dollars. Wow, be done with it. So that Hope Summers was
a bit of television history. So now the next person that comes up as
far as appearance in the movie would be um Ali Ali Weaver, Yeah,
who was probably the handsome sort of foil of of Luther in the movie that
the Successful Riders or he flashy has, the beautiful girlfriend has everything Luther wants,
has, the job Luther wants, as the girl Luther wants has probably
the looks that Luther wants played by a skip Homeier who was the child actor
who wasn't a child star, but started as a child actor and was able
to transition into adulthood adult acting. He did, like all these guys,
he was in everything, but he did a lot of westerns and war stuff.
But he was He was in The Rifleman, Wagon Train Bonanza. It's
like the whole run. It's like, if you know how to handle like
a six shooter and can ride a horse, sen you're an actor. You
know what I mean, You're gonna work in the sixties. He was also
play had two roles in the original Star Trek series, so he's big with
Treky fans Um. And he was in the film The Gunfighter with Gregory Peck.
And of course there's a Helter Skelter connection m because he played the Manson
trial judge in the nineteen seventy six Helter Skelter TV movie that we did a
whole episode about, right, Yeah, he was yeah, Mannix Adams family.
He said, all everyone tick tick tick for you, and that sure
I was in there. I got my two hundred and fifty dollars appearance,
you know whatever. But but yeah, those people kicked it out, all
those all those episodic television and h and yeah, Helter Skelter Judge Older.
He was that surprised me. In fact, I think that, uh,
how long have we been doing this podcast, because I seem to recall him.
They were coming up in four years, okay, because he was one
of the obituaries we mentioned in twenty seventeen. I think I know he came
up with four. Oh no, it must have been the Helter Skelter episode.
That's right, that must have been it, because yeah, so it
um. But yeah, so he was in our world an amazing actor.
Um. He passed away a skip passed away on a June twenty fifth,
twenty seventeen. He was eighty six and it was spinal my loopathy, which
is a neurological situation related to the spinal cord. I don't know eighty six
to make it the eighty six and have some shit like that. Yeah,
so rip Ali Weaver rip skip. Formerly. So the next guy that shows
up in the it was Dick Sargent, and we covered him, of course
quite a bit in the bewitch yepisode. Yeah, Dick Sargeant and Sander Gould,
who was also in uh and of course who played Gladys Kravitz and Bewitch.
There were two big Bewitched actors in this movie, Um, I love
I love the Ladies of the Psychic Occult Society of racial group with the ladies
with their little banner to show up at the house, and the cosmic vibrations.
Oh man, the cosmic vibrations. I love it. Rita shows she
was the best. Yeah, we we call them manifestations. I love.
Dick Sargeant played Luther's boss and the editor of the new staper that he works
for. And of course Dick Sargeant was the second Darren Stevens on Bewitched,
and I liked him in this movie because he was, well he was.
He was your standard sort of Darren Stevens dickhead, you know. He had
that kind of dicky personality. But when it came to the point where,
you know, Luther stayed one night in the house and saw all the horrible
haunting things and talked to everyone about it, and when the owner of the
house said, that's nonsense, I'm going to sue you for slander. Um,
Dick Sargent stood by him said, Luther, did that happen to you?
Yes? It did, Okay, we stand here then, you know,
so I thought that was that was a nice moment that I wasn't extracted
his back. Yeah yeah, so um. And you know, we all
know Dick Sargeant. You know, he came out as gay in nineteen ninety
one. He and Elizabeth Montgomerys co star hosted co Graham Marshall the Gay Pride
Parade in West Hollywood and uh and he died like three years later a prostate
cancer. Yeah, at July eighth, ninety four, and he was sixty
four years old, rest in Pea sticks Sergeant again. Yeah yeah, now
Hal Smith again, we talked about that briefly. The who played otis the
drunk on Andy Griffith. He had a huge career as a voice man.
He did like he was on the flint Stones. He was, He did
Winnie the Pooh, He did a quick drama Grown Huckleberry had now classic Hannah
barbaric cartoons and post nineteen sixty seven Goofy for the Disney movies on the original
if he died, so he was quite a successful. Now I found this.
I never heard about this before. But otis Hal Smith who I called
Moodist, but his name was it was his name Charlie Calver Weems. I
love that. But he was in a movie called Once Upon a Girl And
I've got to read this. It was in nineteen seventy six American live action,
adult animated fantasy comedy pornographic film written and produced by and directed by John
Don Juric Jurwick was animated by a group of animators who had worked for Disney
and Hannah Barbera. Now. It was about a lewd old lady claiming to
be Mother Goose. Who was Hal Smith? Who is? You know?
Calver Weems has been put on trial for obscenity obscenity due to yelling the telling
the true versions of famous fairy tales. Who evidence is presented as a collection
of pornographic animated shorts Jack and the Beanstalk, Cinderella and Little Red Riding Hood.
So I'd love to see that. Actually, it's probably they probably broadcast
on TV nowadays, you know, and it was considered pornography back then.
But um, but yeah, so so he was. Hal Smith died in
his home in Santa Monica listening to his favorite radio show on January twenty,
eighteen ninety four. He was seventy seven. What was his favorite radio show?
In nineteen ninety four? It wasn't anything that I found interesting enough to
remember I mentioned. Was it like an old show that he had tapes of
or what was the I want no, no, no, it was a
proper radio radio for it. Yeah, you're gonna make me look for it
now, Dallas says, is he was listening to his nightly drama hour on
radio. What that's what it was? Radio dramas in the nineties. Well,
I don't know. I mean, I know that I know that the
Brits do that. That's still a big deal there. But but he did
die like two weeks before the North North Through earthquake. Okay, who appears
next in the movie? Lu Huther goes to the police department report that he'd
seen a murder and you know, he thought he had by this, you
know, getting hit on the head with a or reporting a murder that he
saw the body and ended up being this drunk guy and so everyone was making
fun of him. And as he was heading back then he had it back
to his home, the boarding house where he was living cruelly, cruelly living
with the guy who plays Ali, the nasty one who was it's not very
nice to him, but it was funny. They were mocking him. They
were making fun of him about seeing mister murder, mister his face, and
he says, why don't you run up an alien holler fish? That was
his insult to those guys. It's like it had to be an inside joke
of some sort, But why did you run up an alien holler fish?
But he he lived in the Natalie Miller boarding house, and Natalie Miller was
Loreene Tuttle, who I love that. It's like if I had, if
I had a kid daughter, I would name her Loreene just to keep that
name alive. Look that name. I love that name so much. And
and she was. She'd been in a million things again, a ton of
TV shows. But she was in Don't Bother to Knock and Niagara with Maryland.
She was with Carrie Grant in Mister Blanning Bill's Dream House. She was
a sheriff's wife in Psycho Walking Tall. She played a nurse on the groundbreaking
Julia Show with Diane Carroll, the first African American woman to have out a
show based around her. And she was also an acting teacher and she taught
Red Skelton, Orson Wells, Milton Burl, Steve Allen, and Jane Meadows,
and her daughter Barbara was married to John Williams, the composer. Wow,
so it's like, you know, so she it's a lot of you
know, a lot of taking a lot of boxes. But yeah, her
daughter, her daughter died quite young, but they were I think she died
in like seventy five or something like that. But she was married to John
Williams Star Wars. We talked about him. Prayers of the Lost Arc and
Superman and the Jaws, I mean tons of Lost in Space theme song which
a few of these actors end up showing up on Belly of the Dolls.
So anyway, but Loreene Tuttle died in Encino on May twenty eighth, nineteen
eighty six. She was seventy eight years old. And then staying with that
theme, there were a couple of those older women actresses that were there.
One was called Jesselyn Facts. She played one of the two competitive ladies.
You know, they were saying her eyes were blue. I heard they were
black. Well they were blue and black, and you know, I pay
one hundred dollars, I pay one hundred and fifty dollars, you know,
like that sort of thing. But she was on she was a course on
Andy Griffith's show, and she was in Rear Window, and she was in
Kiss Me Deadly. Who was she in Rear Window? I don't remember.
It was like a dozen actors in that whole film. Rear Window was what
year fifty four? Thank you? It's my favorite movie going? Is it?
Really? Were Windows your favorite? Yeah? Yep? Uh, Rear
Window, Mishearing Aid. Okay, she's the sculptor. Okay, that's how
I thought. That's the only person I could think of that she could probably
be. So yeah, she's um Mishearing Aid is the sculptor who makes kind
of weird sculptures down in the first four of the place. And she's the
one that gets yelled at um at one point by the killer when she tries
to tell him how to um how to pretend his garden and he tells her
to shut up. Yeah. I haven't seen that movie in so long.
Oh so good. But it's funny. One things about her that's that's funny
or ish? Is it? Back in two thousand and six, there was
this rumor going on online she wasn't north by Northwest she shows up in that
movie. People were saying that she that her character was actually Alfred Hitchcock in
drag In north By Northwest And here's this big like inner a debate about that
really. So yeah, as a second cameo in the film, that all
for Hitcock was sort of because she had those kind of she had that kind
of features, that kind of shape towards you know when that when that came
out so um so yeah, but she ended up she died in Hollywood in
nineteen seventy five. She was eighty two years old, so that made her
you know, like seventy when they made the movie or something to that,
something like that. Yeah, and like like a lot of them were,
but it was neat that they got We talked about this um and our Patreon
episode about how like Angela Lansbury would always hire these people. There's a few
of these people showed up in Murder, she wrote too. These older actors
Lansbury would put in and Murder she wrote specifically because they were older and not
getting work anymore. She wanted them to get there whatever they're their acting credits,
that I could keep their pension or whatever it was, their union.
Yeah, coverage is going Yeah, I love that. So yeah, so
she showed I mean she died in seventy five, was eighty two years old.
Now. Her partner in the movie The Dark Hair the White Haired Lady,
her name was Nindia Westman, and she she's still one who had the
famous line. It was said, you know four times to the movie,
I think, or five times. They even used bon ammy when referring to
the organ, the haunted organ with the blood stained finger tips on it,
and they on the ivory and she they tried tried everything to clean up that
blood and her line was and they even use Bonammy, which it's still I
think they shall sell Bonammy as a cleanser. It's like a jax, it's
like comment cleanser. And Bonammy was a big thing. And supposedly don Knots
even went to Bonammy like the company and asked permission to reference it in the
film since it got so many references and interesting granted it was granted the okay
to use it. Yeah, I guess it's portraying it in a positive light
because she's saying they even used it. That means it's like the best.
Yeah, So Nindia Westman of course again Munster's Adams Family Bewitched Adam twelve reluctant
to acts astronaut, and then she was that weird movie with Anne Margaret called
The Swinger, where she was she played this like columnist and she was writing
these really racy stories about herself and nobody believed it was really her, like
a young, young, sexy woman and she's talking about all her nightclubs and
hanging out with all the rich playboys and stuff, and it was just kind
of a it's kind of a racy movie for for the time, and she
was I think that might have been her last last performance was in that movie.
And uh and Nydia Wish Nia Ndia Westman, you know again Vaudeville,
that whole bit. Yeah, she's got a huge I mean, she's got
huge credits. But again it's all the stuff that that that Perry Mason Addison
leepyish anyway, So Nydia Westman died in May twenty third and nineteen seventy in
Burbank. Uh cancer. So, but it was the other little competitive lady
I loved. I love those too. They were they were a good uh,
they good good banter with each other. Like, yeah, being an
agent back then must have been nuts with all these character actors. Just just
just volume. It's all about numbers. Just it's a numbers game. Just
get as many of them into as mini shows every week as possible, every
you know what I mean, just constantly bouncing around between sitcoms. Uh,
it's really wild to see all these these actors, how many they all were
in the same shows We come across as you know, time and time again
we did when the Bewitched episode we did, same thing. Uh. Yeah,
being an agent back then for these types of actors must have just been
nuts, just a grind, you know, and they all looked like they
were a hundred back then. Yeah, that's what I mean. There's lots
of drinking and smoking, smoking in old clothes too. I mean it has
a lot to do with the wardrobe. And but I mean, like,
what's his face? You know, we talked about him on the on the
Beverly Hillbillige podcast, Sam Drucker or Green Acres. You know, he was
the old guy that ran the general store on those shows, and they were
crossovers Petty Go Junction and Green Acres and Beverly Hillbillies. But he got he
looked like he was seventy back in the sixties and he was only think so,
yeah, that's funny, but so so, yeah, you're right,
that would have been interesting. It had been interesting to be around a waiting
room in one of those agencies and seeing all those I know you're the guy,
I know you, I know you every day just rolling in. Yeah.
So that brings us to Joanes Staley, who I was my favorite person
to read up on honestly, on that. Yeah, this whole thing.
She's very interesting. She's the romantic lead in this that Luther is competing to
win over um and she she was an accomplished musician. As a kid,
she played I think the violin, and she was in the Junior Symphony at
the Hollywood Bowl as a kid, which I thought was really interesting. And
then as an adult she was play Playboys Miss November nineteen fifty eight. It
was a very tasteful photo shoot. I had to look it up for historical
reasons, you know, make sure I I know fything. And they were
very nice. It was done by a life photographer who approached her and asked
if she would be interested, and she said yeah, so it's very fully
done. She had recurring roles on The tab Hunter Show. Speaking of tab
Hunter and The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet and seventy seven Sunset Strip I think
the final season. She played a secretary on it, and then she had
big parts or bit parts in Cape Fear with Mitcham and she got the slap
Elvis and roused about his sixteenth movie, and she claimed later that it was
a real slap because Elvis didn't want her to fake it. You don't want
her to pull up. He wanted to really smack him. And so when
you hear that slap in that movie, that's not a sound effect. That's
really her smack in Elvis in the face. And I also thought it was
interesting this is the same movie Elvis got injured for real in the face because
he didn't insist on doing his own stunts. And there was a supposedly during
a fight with a group of stuntmen, one of them kind of flips and
the guy's heel caught him in the face and gave him a dash. And
I don't know, I don't know if that's the story of the scar that
he had over his eye, or if it's one of the stories, or
if it's one of the scar as he got, because there's another version of
events where he got a scar of his eye from chicken pox, or another
one where he fell as a kid and hit a table and got a scar.
So I don't know if this is supposed to be that scar, if
it's a different injury, but yeah, that's according to a relative of his.
He was supposedly on set that day and sad of course, everybody was
freaking out. Elvis's got blood streaming on his face. Yeah. But and
then there was another Elvis connection. Jones Staley did some backup singing for Sun
Records in Memphis. She her first husband that she married was a film director
in Tennessee in Memphis, and so she did some backup singing for Sun Records,
of course, which was Elvis's label. Wow was your thing at an
Elvis record? Do you know? I don't. They didn't mention that she
had, so I think they probably would have mentioned if she had done that.
But she did back up at Sun Records, So I don't know what
songs. That's really not that big of a place, you know, No,
it was really It's interesting too. She was blond in real life,
but they made her wear a brunette wig in the Ghost and Mister Chicken supposedly
because she was too sexy as a blonde. I mean, she wasn't interesting
that they even hired a playboy model it to be in this movie, because
I mean, there are some movie there are pictures. I mean I did
a quick google and I saw a couple with her. You know, there
was straight there were the boys were straight out there. I mean that was
they were there. I mean it wasn't like you said there were there was
a there were there were hidden a little bit. It was kind of a
peekaboo thing, but they were certainly there in fifty eight and um, so
it's interesting to me that they hired her like that. You would think that
would blacklist people for from movies. She had a good career. Her career
was only curtailed she injured her horse or she entered a horse. She injured
her back riding a horse in a film the same year. It was a
different movie that really did get her blacklist. That's enough. No, she
she entered her back riding a horse, and I think shooting a western,
uh, and that kind of curtailed her career as the same that happened the
same year that she shot that. She did this movie. Um, and
she said interesting an interview a couple of years before this, in sixty four,
she said, I've made a career of playing an undulating blonde in tight
dresses. It isn't that I wanted that brassy sexpot image, but that's the
image producers feel you project when you're well blonde and shapely. Also, when
you've been in Playboy, I think probably had an impact that probably, Yeah,
it's it's funny. And also during that time period, wigs were chic.
You know people people were whigs all the time, and not as a
yeah, they just there was chic. There were some people that you know,
Troy and I comment that on a lot, like we're watching Rockcord Files
and you know, these women who we know have beautiful hair end up with
these monstrosities on their heads. It's like, because Alma's wig was not good
in this movie and always look clocking to me, it's terrible that So,
yeah, it was it was pointedly that that I guess they did that.
They didn't They didn't spend a whole lot of money on the on the on
the stylist for this one, but they did have a hairstylist because I looked
him up too he's the guy that I did so soiling green think or something.
But but yeah, so they But anyway, but I liked her in
this movie, very likable, although tot you know, a bit annoying too,
I thought, because like she goes, let's have lunch, Luther,
and then she makes him you know, oh, I took this scene.
He's the only one. He's going to be done in a minute, and
there's a guy sitting there and he's got to stand and she's like just talking
like it's okay. And it's like, well, that was kind of shitty.
And then her like boyfriend shows up and steals the seat and she doesn't
do anything about it. Yeah, that was kind of yeah, oh that's
me. And then be a minute, you don't mind, do you?
Luther. It's like that was kind of kind of shitty. I didn't like
that. But oh the other one. I love the other scene. Sorry,
the other joke. I like when um at the beginning, when she
goes, love your print, Elma, No, yeah's your address? Yeah,
and then he says that they're love your print back in an era when
you know, women made a lot of their addresses themselves. Yeah, you
know, they're talking. Oh, I got the print. I got it
at wherever whatever store she got the fabrics. That what I was, you
know, And then she talked about how my niece has one that has a
you know, a big yellow stripe across the yeah boobs. Yeah, that
becomes a gag that gets repealed later. Um, love your print though,
that's something they still use all the time. Sorry. So Jones Staley really
talented, multi talented musician, actress, a comedian UM. And she after
she kind of quit acting or faded away from it, her and her second
husband, who I think was an MCA executive, UM, they started a
talent management company and they wrapped Bob Barker and Meltorma among others. And I
think her daughter now runs the company and took over the family business, which
so they have a talent management business. UM. Jones Staley died on November
twenty four, twenty nineteen. She was seventy nine, and they said it
was heart failure. So just I wish I would have got the opportunity to
talk to these people. I really do en that'd have been me, that
would have been around. Yeah. I met Don Knots at one of those
autograph shows one time, too. And it's like it was at that time
where I had no appreciation for him what he was doing that Three's company business.
It was like I found that character really really not what he wasn't supposed
to be likable, that was the whole point. But uh, now I
didn't. He's really kind of smarm me. I just didn't. I didn't
like it at all. The bad Tupei, the really bad Tupai and um.
But anyways, I said in retrospect, I wish i'd I'd been more
attentive. Um. Next up, Phil phil Ober who played Nicholas Simmons.
I love this guy, the nephew of the mister and Missus Simmons, who
the murder suicide in the original House of Which Villains Just the twentieth anniversary of
the murders in this movie. Yeah, yes, and the villain you're right,
Yeah, he's the villain. Yeah. He wants to tear the house
down to cover up its secrets, cover ups. It's tragic past. I
thought this was a great speaking of you know, Hitchcock. He was un
ambassador Lester Townshend in north By Northwest, the guy that gets killed with a
knife in the back at the inside the UN Building and falls into Carry Grant's
arms, and someone, of course just happens to take a picture of him
looking like he's the killer when he wasn't, obviously, And I thought,
that's a great story in Hollywood. How they shot the exteriors of that film.
They actually shot an establishing shot showing Carrie Grant running up the front steps
of the UN building to go inside, and of course everything else was a
set, and they did not have permission to film at the UN building,
So Hitchcock and the camera operator hid in a van across the street and filmed
from inside a van and had Carrie Grant, you know, go up and
down those front steps, and you can see real security guys out there look
kind of looking around like they kind of knew something was up, and I
mean, obviously they must have noticed Carrie Grant right by them. But that
was a stolen shot. That was a little Hitchcock guerrilla filmmaking there. They
did not have permission to film at the UN building, so that when Stace
went and stole it, And ironically, Philip Ober then when he retired from
acting, he went into the US Diplomatic Service and worked as the US consul
in port Porto Vararta, Mexico, which would be a nice way to retire.
I think, yeah, that wouldn't be so bad. I didn't realize
he was married to Vivian Vans. That would surprise me. I love that
story too. He left he was married to someone else's first wife. When
that happened, when he got together with her and I came across a.
He went on to be Vivian Vance's third husband, and she was his second
wife. Of course, you know Ethel Mertz from I Love Lucy. So
when he left his first wife for her, it was a divorce scandal there
in New York because his wife, I think, was kind of a socialite.
His first wife, and the United Press reported Missus Philip Ober, who
her real name was Phillis Roper, his wife at the time, charged in
New York Supreme Court today that her husband, a star in the b Way
hit mister and Missus North found so much after theater right relaxation in the apartment
of Vivian Vance, blonde musical comedy singer, that he forgot to come home
several nights. It's good, it happens to everybody, and Vimian advanced,
Vivi advanced and responded that the article saying it was ridiculous and that she was
actually charging ober Rent and then it was platonic, so funny whatever. Well,
apparently according to it, there's a guy I know. His name is
Bose Hadley, and Bose Hadley wrote several books on Hollywood, a lot of
like kind of trashy stories, tabloidy will say, tabloidy stories. You know.
He wrote a book about old the old Hollywood lesbians and all the whole
Hollywood gays and and but he actually said in one interview that he got was
that Vivian Vance said that he was very abusive towards her, said and said
she showed up to h I Love Lucy with a black eye, and Lucy
said, if you don't divorce him, I'm going for him or something,
not not as in going for him romantically, but if you don't divorce him,
I will something to that, right right, And they were married for
like eighteen years too. Yeah, yeah, that sucks. That's really interesting
because you know they um, they did eventually get divorced in fifty nine,
which was a couple of years after I Love Lucy left the air, So
maybe she finally took Lucille Ball's advice. So Philip ober passed away on September
thirteenth, nineteen eighty two from lung cancer. He was eighty. So then
then, so we mentioned that Luther was a type setter and he saw he
saw him the murder victim in front of that Simmons house. Turns out that
he was a drunk guy and he was getting all this crap from his colleagues.
So then he's working as this type setter and they come down and they
say, you know, Luthor, we need a three inch filler for the
paper. And he goes to the little file draw and you know, in
the little three by five papers that have a little human interest thing, you
know, they'll say that some little girl, you know, found a kite
that she lost ten years earlier or something like that. So then this the
maintenance guy kind of leans over and says, you know, Luther, maybe
you should think about doing something about that murder house is coming up on the
twentieth anniversary, and will don't you write your own filler? And you know,
Luthor's desperate to become a reporter. And that man who did it,
the character's name was was Kelsey and he was actually Liam Redmond, who was
a real Irishman, not one of those phony in movies, a TV Irishman
that come with these crazy accidents he don't recognize. But he was a genuine
Irishman, like died in Dublin Irishman. Yeah yeah, born in Limerick,
Um, Yeah, Liam Redman. He passed away on October twenty eight,
nineteen eighty ninety, was seventy six, after what was reported as a long
period of ill health. He was in the movie called to the Demon in
fifty seven, and it's got a little bit of a bit of trivia because
to me because in the Rocky Horror Picture Show at the beginning of it as
a science song called science Fiction Double Feature that Richard O'Brien wrote and sang in
the movie and mentioning, you know, Michael Rennie was ill the day the
Earth stood still and you know, and told Flash Gordon was there in silver
underwhere Claude Rains was the invisible man. Well there's there was there's a line
in it says Dana Andrew said, prunes give him the Runes? Are you
n e s And it's from Night of the Night of the Demon, which
is based on his story casting the runes. It's sometime known as passing the
runes, hence the pun prunes, and it's like, yeah, so's it's
just a pun on runs. And that became the lyric to this song,
which I always knew the lyric, but I didn't know where it came from.
It it turns out that says Liam Redman's big, biggest sort of role,
which was a really scary movie. Actually I watched about a half an
hour of it. And although it was fifty seven and you know, stop
action or miniatures, the demons, and it was it was it was quite
dumb. It was good, it was well done. And so he plays
the old Irish guy who's the maintenance guy at the newspaper, and then he
tells luth of the story about what happened at the house and how he was
working at the house the night of the murder suicide and mentioned that, you
know, the whole thing and how it happened with missus Simmons being stabbed in
the throat and mister Simmons playing the tow playing the organ in the tower and
jumping out of the window and killing himself and that again, this is the
twentieth anniversary that's coming up. So Kelsey prompts him to write this article.
And the article's a hit. Everyone in the town is talking about it,
even though it's a little three inch thing in the paper. But I love
the fact that he when he wrote it, it was the horribleness and the
awfulness of it will never be forgotten. It was the three inch filler on
the front page of the paper. I love that. But so yeah,
it was. It mentions the twenty year anniversary. So Dick Sarton suggests,
hey, why don't we you know, come what he did say, Well,
it's the twentieth anniversary of the murder suicide. We ought to capitalize on
that. Imagine that capitalizing on somebody else's horrible thing would never even can do
such a thing terrible. So so anyway, they suggest knots because they knew
he's ridiculous and he'd make it. You know, he's got a crazy imagination
and he's really a coward, and they more or less dare him to do
it, or they humiliate him into doing it. And because he didn't want
to do it, but they said, come on, you're you're not gonna
do it. I'm betting you're not gonna do it. So it's like I'm
gonna do it, and uh, and that was really good. That was
really that whole him going up to the house on that night and the night
before the anniversary, just to check the lay of the land and uh and
uh. And he falls into the house through the coal shoot and is walking
through this crazy honted house and everything happens. Everything happens. It's opposed to
know, the creeping feet and h and I forget whether it's some of the
other. Then he threw the book. The grash player starts playing on its
own, like twenties like Charleston swing music. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
And then the creaking stairs in the whole bit, and then he throws a
book at the bookshelf, and the bookshelf opens up and there's the twisting staircase
that goes up to the organ loft, and he goes up there, and
then the organs start the clock chimes midnight in the distance, and the organ
starts playing all by itself. But that was terrifying when it was growing terrifying.
And then he runs down and he sees the portrait of Missus Simmons with
garden shears in her throat and it's actually bleeding. And then he runs out,
and of course he's hysterical about all these things that happened. He writes
the article about it, and the whole town is amazed that he survived this
crazy night in the haunted house. They printed without even like checking any of
the facts or anything. No fact checking. That well that doesn't matter either
today. But but they print it and he becomes the head of the town
and they have a picnic in his honor and and uh and uh celebrate it.
And then oh, you know that was another fun thing. The guy
that was directing the band, you know that that that that when they introduced
him. That's his name is His name was Dick Wilson. He's the guy
that played the drunk I'm bewitched all the time. And you know, he
was always like and Simanath would disappear and he was just drunk and I like,
this stuff is too strong. And then and he played mister mister Whipple
and the Charman over five hundred Charman commercials. Yeah, and he was just
and he was just the bandleader. He didn't even getting credit in the movie,
you don't really he never gets a close up. But but I heard
him talk and I was like, oh, yeah, that's that's certainly him.
Certain that all that sharp. He didn't need the credit. He had
all that Sharman money, God commercials, should you match money and to be
the spokesperson and that many commercials. Yeah, yeah, that's that was like
Doris Doris Roberts. Doris Roberts was the was the person who did the She's
from Everyone Loves Raymond, and she did Glade in her Freshener commercials. And
she bought a house and you know that house from Double Indemnity up up in
the Hollywood Hills, that crazy house that Barbara Stanwick lived in in Double Indemnity.
Doris Roberts house shows up in that movie, just as the one next
door. And she called it Cassette de Glade because Glader Freshner paid for it.
That's right. Um, you know you mentioned the painting with the shears
in it. That is the one thing that has never explained away in the
film is that, um, you know, because everything else they have because
when he goes back, you know, with the court, with the judge
and the townspeople, and nothing is the way he described it in the house,
and they're all like, oh, you made it all up. The
painting is back to normal. There's no holes in it and blood on it
or anything. And that is one thing that has never explained away, like
how that was made to look like that. And there apparently there was a
deleted scene that did explain had an explanation for how it was done. You
know, the guy that pulled this off. Well, I thought it was
pretty clear that he had done it. And then, you know, because
I just thought that that was what happened, I didn't really question it.
Well, no, like, how did the painting when he went back not
have holes in it anymore? Yeah? Actually, well they like he didn't
ruin it like like he did the first night. He had a second one.
Yeah, I can't remember what there was. There was an explanation.
It was something like that that they had switched out or something like that.
But that was one the one thing that was deleted from the finished film that
didn't explain how he pulled that off. There was another weird thing that I
looked up and I just couldn't go there because it was getting to be,
you know, written a rabbit hole. But there's a weird scene where he's
walking and that dog walks by. Did you see that scene There's a dog
right behind him. It's like an airdale or something. It's like it's like
it had to be. They knew it was in the shot. It was
like almost right next to him and kept walking. And apparently it had something
to do with a deleted scene as well, because they gets the dog shows
up again in another part of the movie. But it was really obvious because
you remember when the black cat jumps out at him, and that was like
one of those it was just that obvious. But this dog just walking right
behind him. It was very, very weird, and apparently that has something
to do with a deleted scene too. But so he spends the night in
the house, writes the article, a very successful article. Everyone's loving it
well. Nicholas Simmons, the nephew of the murder suicide people, because he
wants to tear the house down because he wants to develop it and also rid
of any memories in that house. And this is where it gets a little
bit like it's It gets a little complicated because the man who ran the bank
was supposed to sign off because it was a lean on the house. So
the man who ran the bank, Nicholas Simmons says, you got to sign
off on this. He was going to, but it turns out that his
wife, Rita Shaw says, I owned fifty one percent, and I'm into
the occult society, and yes, I own fifty one percent of the bank.
And this is the first time we've had hunting in our in our myths.
And they have this little occult society where all the old lady you know,
just seances and things like that. So she says, absolutely, no
way, are you going to tear this house down. Well, you know,
it's interesting, it's interesting. Uh, this was a thing in the
know, probably more like the late eighteen hundreds into their you know, early
half in the nineteen hundreds, this occult, especially with women that were like
women's groups that was just like this, what this group was like. It
was very common back then they would um do seances and try to contact the
dead. Uh and um, it was it was like a big thing back
then. It was kind of like what our paranormal TV shows are today.
Back then it was usually I think it was largely it was usually women's groups.
This is something that they were super into, um back then, say
for whatever reason. So I thought it was really interesting when that popped up,
this you know, a psychic occult group with their banner. Ye up.
I was like era, like a board housewife thing maybe you know,
uh, for people to have the means to be able to do that that
were it was also, you know, entertaining was more popular back then.
It was way to entertain basically was something to do. I want to play
board games, you don't want to like summon the dead. I guess that's
where Weiga boards came in when they they became board you know, parlor family
games. They still sell them in game stores. You know Wicha boards.
People there opening portals up left and right. Man. Yeah, mate made
by Milton Bradley, which fascinating and if you use it you can contact him.
Yeah, no kidding. So so Rita Shaw who she played now.
She played Martha, the housekeeper in the in the show The Ghost of Missus
mew Er when that became a sitcom on Interesting okay, And she was also
one of the two housekeepers in Mary Poppins, her and Hermione Baddeley that were
the singing Housekeepers. She was also in The Loved One, that famous spoof
on Forest Lawn, Escape from Witch Mountain and uh, and she is in
um the Columbarium of Remembrance of Forest Lawn, right across from Hank Kimball from
Green Acres. They're almost next door to each other. So she died on
January eighth, nineteen eighty two, of emphysema, and she's buried it for
a slawn. So but she's another one in all of those shows, all
of those shows, and she m and also that that thing she kept saying
that the chant it was Taro caro selima. Then all those ladies are flipping
out. God, I love it. It's so funny. But uh,
and they do that thing where he's walking by and they touch him and they
all pass out from the cosmic vibration. Cosmic vibrations. Man, yeah,
you got to feel it. So um And then okay, So then the
other thing we have is then the ghost a trial. You know, they
make him spend the night in the house a second time. That brings us
to Charles Lane, who played the attorney in representing Nicholas Simmons, who was
suing the newspaper because a slander because there's no ghost in that house. Yeah,
yeah, and take it back or I'm suing you and Charles Lane,
we talked about him. He was in It's a Wonderful Life. He was
in Um Mister Smith Goes to Washington. He was in Arsenic and Old Lace.
He was best friends with Lucille Ball. He was in a Million a
Million. He was in a few Lucy's Shot, he was in the Munsters,
Andy Griffith, of course, Twilight Zone, Beverly Hillbillies, h He'd
been in a ton of things. And he lived on Gretna Green and he
died. He was one hundred and two years old. He died in two
thousand and seven. But he lived about like two doors down from Nicole Simpson.
And when you know, before she was murdered, remember she and oj
had domestics, and there was a time when when when she called nine one
one, when he was beating down her door at a different address, not
the one where she was murdered. And Charles Lane like lived next door or
two doors down from Nicole Simpson when that happened, because he was he would
talk about it like I was there, you know, they happened here,
and so it's kind of just kind of an interesting little aside. But but
he was um, he Adam twelve as well. He's been another one of
another, one of those actors that was in everything but two thousand and seven
July ninth, he died in Santa Monica and uh Bewitched though you remember which
certainly he played that. He was in the Nightmare the Night Before Christmas spoof,
were you know, the grumpy client of Darren's who didn't believe in Christmas.
You gotta work on Christmas? Go on? Is all your names?
No? No, no, let's say so nod you're adding something to that
now. I'm going to try to do this fast because some of them are
just going to tick them off the list. But I don't know any of
these names. Okay, so Charles Charles Lane. I loved in the movie
is how the old ladies were old ladies not very anazing to say, and
all the older women who were in the Psychic Society were hissing at them when
they walked into the literally. I love that. It was cool. And
then they brought into to testify at the trial of lose their shanity. They
brought in Ellen Corby, who played the grandmother on The Waltons, who was
also It's a Wonderful Life. She'd been in Andy Griff. I think she
played a bank robber and Andy Griffin like a mom Barker kind of a character.
She was in Vertigo, she was in Sabrina, she was the glass
Bottom Bow. She was in I remember Mama, and of course Adam's family
Beverly Hillbillies. I love Lucy and and she's the one who kind of,
you know, we're testifying towards Luther's sanity because everyone thinks he exaggerated this whole
ghost story when he printed when they printed it in the paper, and she's
like, oh, no, you know, he's a good boy. He
had the best imagination and started talking about how he told everyone he was the
son of the Prince of Wales and then he could pick up the military right
and his cavities, military like broadcasts on his cavity. So that kind of
that kind of destroyed his credibility. And she was so sweet because she came
out said, I you know, I hope I did well for you Luther
afterwards, and she actually just threw a wrench and his all his life,
completely crushed his life. Yeah, but most people remember her as the grandmother
on the Waltons and who was a lifetime a lifelong bachelorette as they said,
you know what I mean, and I think you do. And Ellen died
on April fourteenth, nineteen ninety nine. She was eighty seven years old in
Woodland Hills, California, at the Motion Picture Country on So that was really
those are the biggies that were in the that they were in the in the
movie, I mean the rest of them, you know, the rest of
the movie. We probably shouldn't tell the whole rest of the movie because people
should see it. We're want to spoil the whole thing. We told quite
a bit. But the ending there's a twist and uh, you know,
the supernatural thing is called into question and it's one of the Scooby Doo endings,
but in a good way, in a good way. Yeah, I
quite liked it. Like I thought, the whole thing was done really well.
I did look up one of the one of the art directors. His
name was Alexander Golitzen, who won two Academy Awards. He did one at
forty three for Phantom of the Opera with Nelson Eddie, but he won the
Academy Award for To Kill a Mockingberg as a as a kidding. Yeah,
well, yeah, the art direction was amazing too. Credit was in black
and white too to be to be Yeah, and one of the greatest opening
credit sequences ever, really beautiful and put I'm sure his art direction was a
part of that great kind of macro photography of like marbles and kids things,
really beautiful opening credit sequence. Yeah, he got the Oscar for that,
and he also was nominated for an Oscar for his last movie, which was
Earthquake. Oh really, his last movie was Earthquake, which is a good
one. They say it was a good one to go out on because that
was a huge success that movie was. And uh and uh yeah, so
Alexander he the co art director with a band named George Webb, who had
you know, didn't have as many interesting credits to his name, but no
less, very very important to this movie. Yeah. And then lastly,
the most the interesting creature person I found was was I say creature and it's
actually appropriate. Rose Rosemary Odell, who was the costumer on this movie,
was also the costumer and creature from the Black Lagoon and to Kill and to
Kill a Mockingbird. Wow, that's interesting. So they grabbed so they had
their art director and costumer were both to kill a mockingbird. Yeah, that's
very interesting, m I there were a lot of incestuous you know, sort
of with our cannibal eyes or however you want to put it. You know,
people, because there's so many degrees of similarities. You were in this,
and you worked on that, and you got this, and yeah,
all these people were interacting. I can also tell you, though I don't
know how it was then, it is probably something similar. But now you
know, if you have like a production manager who's kind of their job to
help find a lot of those extra crew positions like that, Um, you
know, they have their people that they like, and so there might have
been a producer production manager on this film who just he may if you look
at their background, you might find out, Oh there's the link. That's
the person who's bringing these people and reusing them together over and over again because
they like working with them. Yeah, they're used to working with each other.
And costumes and work in set design usually have to go together. As
you're talking about color palettes and stuff like that. There's there's usually a connection
between those two things. So, um, that makes sense. God,
you're so smart, Mike. That's some nerdy Hollywood stuff that kind of stuff.
It's really I mean I've known people, like I've known people that didn't
get hired onto it. You know, a thing that I worked on,
for example, because the production manager had their own people that they wanted to
hire. Basically, so yeah, I get it. Yeah, it's incestuous.
You know, I have a good relationship with that person. I want
to work with them. Again, It's not necessarily nepotism because they people have
to pay their own weight, they have to come up with you know,
people have proven themselves to you that you know, do good work, so
of course you want to keep hiring them. It's that that's normal. That's
not yet. It's like that's like it's like the opposite of nepotism, like
they are in that spot by doing good work in the past. Basically.
Yeah, right. Um. Our our friend Kelly called this movie NTS Scary
Farm, and I thought that that's quite good. That's very like that's a
scary farm. So they good one. Um so is that it? Did
we do it? I think we're done here. Yeah. I didn't want
to go into the ending because I want people to actually see it and not
know how it ends. But really I just love this movie so much.
And like I say, it's just encapsulates, you know, fun movies,
scary movies. Back when movies you know, didn't have to terrify you yet
they were. They're spooky enough. Kinder the term I've heard before is called
kinder trauma, where you when you're when you're a child and you see an
image that, uh that you'll never forget. Like in the same bad movie,
there's a cyclops and when I was a kid, I saw that was
like, I'll never forget that. It's like ingrained in my head. So
yeah, there's there's several kinder trauma moments. The garden shears in the throat
with the blood on the painting, that's very terrifying. For nineteen sixty six,
it's pretty pretty terrifying. So um so, and that was the point.
But uh but it wasn't gross. It was you know it was,
but it was gross. A bleeding painting with scarten shears in the throat.
Yeah yeah, yeah, Okay, but I think I think I've covered everything
I want to. Well, well, we did your favorite Halloween movie.
I think we should do my favorite Christmas movie for holidays wife, Yes,
yes, yes, yes, yeah, with you know Carrie Grant and Lauretta
Young and David Niven. Of course, just a classic. And I used
to work um on the lot where they filmed it. So they filmed that
on which now called the lot which is next to Formosa Cafes. That a
lot there used to be I think used to be called I think he used
to be to Warners back in the day, but now it's just called the
lots they're on Santa Monica. Yeah it was, Yeah, it was.
That's where United Artists started and I think open for a long time too.
But yeah, oh definitely. Oprah is still the own building, the building
of the office building, her own the own network. Oprah is still there
and she still shows up there about once a month for relatings and to do
you know it, you know, psa vo voiceovers and stuff like that.
Yeah, checks pick up her check. Yeah. Have you ever off topic
a bit in front of that studio? You ever seen a diorama up there
in front of that studio, Oh, the kind of the one that's on
Santa Monica Boulevard. Yes, yeah, I have. I've stopped and looked
at it before. It's really odd. It's like metal look in the little
door and you could see like all the movie equipment. And yeah, it's
so bizarre that I've I didn't even know it was there until like three years
ago. Yeah, and uh, surpar as, no one's you know,
broke in it yet, but you know, we're straight painted it. They
had to close it up as a Really that is a really bizarre little thing.
Also, if you ever see if you ever see the film Trumbo about
Dalton Trumbo, the screenwriter that got blacklisted, one of my favorite films in
the past decade. Just really well done period piece from that era. King
Pictures. The King Pictures office that they go in and out of is the
lot. It's one of those axterior facing doors. Did they go in and
out of there? I think they look like they probably filmed on Formosa for
that. So cool. Yeah, No, I look forward to seeing that
movie. I've never seen it, so I look forward. Oh my gosh,
ah, it's great. You know what it looks not Is it the
best Christmas holiday movie ever made? Probably not, but it's kind of like
this movie is for you as a sentimental value. You know, it's a
movie I watched. That's probably the holiday movie I watched the most growing up
the best. That's the difference. No, I get it because I saw
the remake. I knew I saw the one with Houston, but I didn't.
I've never seen the original one, so we should give it the I
should give the Nenzel one a chance. I boycotted only because how a dare
you? How dare you remake my favorite Christmas movie? But it's yeah,
that's not doesn't really genuinely except morally, does it bother you? Uh?
You know, because you figured, well, the original still stands. You
know. I used to get a little defensive when people like when they did
the Rocky Horror remake. You know, it's like people like, how this
is not outrage and it sucked, but the music is still good and I
enjoyed. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I didn't bother me. Didn't
affect the original one. And people are not talking about the Fox version of
Rocky Horror. You know, it's still not right, you know, so
right, that's true, But I understand you get feel sentimental and protective.
I get that. I mean, so I didn't see Disturbia when it came
out, which was that with um shy La buff It was one of his
earlier films because it was. I saw the trail, I'm like, oh,
it's a rip off of r window, Like again, how dare you?
Uh? And then I finally did watch it. I actually that was
a pretty good movie. I actually enjoyed it, so I should give them
a fair shake, and I to it, that's a whole different thing.
If you're ripping it off, that sucks. You know, that's that sucks.
That's that should be. That's like, that's wrong, that's really wrong
when you Yeah, this was more like definitely inspired by but it wasn't like
a rip off rip off. It was the disturbut it was not like a
straight rip off of It was that they went in saying, what if a
John Hughes had made a thriller, but if you had a John Hughes teen
movie, but it was a thriller, that was like the vibe they went
for. So yeah, it was it was interesting. Huh. Yeah,
all right. And Shyla buff has had his problems, I know, but
this is before he had all those problems. Yeah, yeah, he's he's
just just a cute kid that was in a Transformer movie, you know,
and then he just turned into a disaster. Anyway. Yeah, by the
way, I love your Dealer Departed Jack o'lanard. I just noticed it.
I was trying to figure out what that was. Somebody somebody gave it to
me and then the other side, Oh amazing they that made Yeah, it's
awesome. I what a good gift it was. It was nice, all
right? Well at a boy Scott, I had a boy Mike. I
waited all episode to say that I love your print. Hey, and you
can get an ad a boy Luther T shirt. Did you know that with
don Knots's face on it? Google it it exists. Sounds fun. Yeah,
through actually really nice design. I recommend it cool. I'll check it
out. Thank you. All right, guys, thanks to everybody for listening.
Please join us on Patreon if you haven't already. Dearly Departed podcast.
We do extra episodes between these main ones and it is a big help helps
us keep going, and we are very very grateful to all of our Patreon
supporters who stick by us. Thank you, thank you, and very much
so yeah, thank you. I can't wait to do the next episode.
Remember, maybe we can find the carpenters. Oh that's right, Yes,
we keep talking about it. Yeah, yeah, I've got I've got all
my fan club letters ready and I have to spour through them. So yes,
we've been talking about doing the Carpenters for like six months. Let's finally
do it. Yeah, I'm in, I'm in, all right, Thank
you guys for watching. Thank you all right, and go watch The Ghost
of Mister Chicken for Halloween. Had a Boy, Had a Boy. This
has been an episode of the Dearly Departed podcast. Dig up more episodes at
Dearly Departed pod dot com and on iTunes and Google Play. See you next time.