Speaker 1: Horizon.
Speaker 2: So the Yank delegate from Texas steps up and shouts
remember the elbow and checks out to Mexican. Welcome back
to the Shirley You Can't be serious podcast. We are
coming to you live from Wales, United Kingdom. How many
different countries are there in this country? I think there's three. Anyway,
we're walking along and where are we the slaughtered lamb?
That sounds appetizing.
Speaker 1: Let's go and see if they have some hot soup.
Speaker 2: What was it that old guy told us from the
sheep truck.
Speaker 1: Stay on the road, keep clear of the moors, beware
the moon.
Speaker 2: Stick to the roads. Oops. All right, Shirley fans, welcome
back for the third of our Halloween episodes this October.
We are excited to be talking about were wolf movies today. Jason,
do you remember the first time he saw these movies?
Speaker 1: Yes, the first time I saw an American werewolf in London.
I was at a friend's house spending the night. It's
probably a second grader or a third grader, right, And
we had ordered pizza and nobody asked me what flavor
I wanted, so I got combo, you know which. No
kid likes green peppers on their pizza, so I was
already mad about that, and then we're watching American Werelf
in London and I'm like, wow, this is really amazing.
This looks really cool. There's scenes that take place at
a porn theater, and I realized that I'm like, you know,
facing my own death here, and what can I do
but just eat my pizza with green peppers and watch
American Werewolf in London and be blown away because it
was so awesome.
Speaker 2: So I got to watch this one with my dad. Huh.
And I mentioned on our Trading Places First is Coming
to America episode from last season that this is where
I found out what our rated meant or kind of right,
because my dad wanted me to see this movie. He
loved this movie, but there were parts that he said,
you got to leave. I was watching at the house.
I was in a theater, but it was like, you
gotta leave its part. I'm like, why he goes, cause
it's scary. He let me watch the werewolf change completely,
but it was like too scary for me to watch,
And that's what rated art meant. And then a couple
years later, I found out no rated arment something completely
different and much more fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yes. Yes, both of these movies have scenes that like
pornography is taking place in the background.
Speaker 2: They had to film the porn scenes first. Both directors
were like, all right, well, guess we're gonna make a
porn movie to put in our non porn movie, right,
which is weird. We can talk about that in a minute,
but that's it's crazy. There are a ton of similarities
in these movies, the most important of which is the
amazing change metamorphosis and the wolf.
Speaker 1: I would say that that's the highlight of both movies.
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: The transformation from man to wolf was so astounding when
you watch this for the first time in nineteen eighty one.
There's no computers. This is all done with latex and
rubber and fake hands and all this stuff.
Speaker 2: Like every Wolfman movie that had come out before this,
the guy would be sitting in a chair and it
would be like a time lapse photograph type thing where
the hair just kind of appears on his face and
then he wakes up and he's a wolf, right, Which
that's what John Landis wanted to be done with.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean his whole thing was if your bones
are stretching and your face is morphing into something. It's
going to be super painful. And man, that scene is
incredible because all of a sudden, David is like an
intense pain, like his head is exploding or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's get into it. Let's talk about the
history of these movies and how they came about. Okay,
let's do it all right, starting with mister John Landis.
I've told a little bit of the story before, but
it's worth repeating. It's been a year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 2: Okay. So John Landis is a little kid and he
sees this movie Jason and the Argonauts, and it's got
the stop motion photography with these monsters and cyclops. Goes home.
He says, who is the guy who makes movies? Because
he's so fascinated and his mom says, that's the director,
and he says, that's what I want to be. That's
what I want to do with my life. And by
sixteen he's working in the mailroom in one of the
Hollywood studios. He gets to know some people, and by
seventeen there's a director who's calling him from Yugoslavia who says, hey, man,
you want to get into pictures. If you can find
a plane ticket to get out here. I'll put you
to work, And so he goes to his bank. He
has just enough money to buy a plane ticket. But
he goes and tells his mom, Hey, they're flying me
out there, right, He's withdrawn his own money just to
fly out there. They're flying me out there to make movies,
so that she'll go, Okay, you can go out there.
And so he goes out there and makes Kelly's Heroes
with Clin east Wood and Kelly Slan, Kelly Savalis, Donald Sutherland,
Harry Dean Stanton from Alien Yeah, Yeah, and he gets
he gets all kinds of work over there in Europe,
learns all kinds of things. But while he's working on
Kelly's Heroes, they're over there in Yugoslavia. They're driving down
this like four hundred mile long single lane road. The
driver's a Yugoslav guy who he said has probably been
convicted of war crimes since then. And they come across
a funeral, right, and the funeral is being done by gypsies.
I mean, he said, it looks like they were out
of Central Casting. They had the babushka, they had the
head dress, they had the tassels, they had it all right.
It's it's they look just like you would cast a
gypsy in the old movies, which, if you remember from
the original Wolfman, that's the lady that gave us all
the exposition.
Speaker 1: That's true, that's true.
Speaker 2: And so they're doing this funeral and they've got garlic
on the guy and he says, they buried him feet first,
like upright, yeah, yeah, And he's talking to this driver
of his. You're just laughing at this. He just thinks
it's all ridiculous. But he's talking to him and he's like,
why are they doing it like this? And the guy says, well,
that's to make sure that the guy doesn't wake up,
dig himself out of the grave and go get these people.
If you bury him v first, it's impossible for him
to get out.
Speaker 1: Well, of course, I mean that just makes common.
Speaker 2: Sense, good sense, right, I mean, somebody's waking from the dead.
They're going to be completely stopped by being upright, And
so they go on their way, and then that night
he can't sleep. All he can think about is what
would happen if some undead gypsy came to attack me?
And that is what lights the spark for the script
that he writes for the movie that will become American
were Wolf in London.
Speaker 1: That is a great story, man, that's a great story.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Nineteen eighty one we had four major werewolf movies. Yeah,
we're going to be covering the two big ones today.
American war Wolf in London, yep, came out in August
of eighty one.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: The Howling came out in April of eighty one.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Then you had Full Moon High.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, what full Moon High? Full Moon High?
Speaker 1: It's kind of teen Wolf, Okay, it's it's like a
precursion to tea.
Speaker 2: It had Adam Arkin and Ed freaking McMahon hes Full
Moon High.
Speaker 1: And then you had a movie called Wolf.
Speaker 2: Yes with a yeah, but we picked the best. Oh,
we only picked Yes the Wolf. And I remember seeing wolfing,
but I don't. I remember that I saw it, but
I don't remember the movie. Like it's just very forgettable.
Speaker 1: I was disappointed when I saw it.
Speaker 2: And Full Moon High, interestingly, was directed by a guy
named Larry Cohen. He also directed a movie called It's Alive,
and he had been working on a movie before that
with this young kid named Rick Baker. And Rick had
been doing some special effect ex for various movies, and
Larry Cohen's like, you should come do the special effects
for this movie It's alive. Well, he didn't actually end
up doing that, but another guy who was interested in
Rick Baker's special effects was John Landis. He had gotten
back to the US by then he had seen this
movie called trog which is about a troglodyte, which is terrible, right,
it's a terrible movie. He's like, this is a terrible
This movie is so bad, I want to make a
joke movie about it. And that movie that he wanted
to make was going to be called Shlock and he
was going to dress up in this kind of ape costume.
And so he's new to this. Right, He's only got
about sixty thousand dollars to make the movie, and so
he goes to find out how much the costume's going
to cost. Talks to one of his friends from the
movies that he's been involved in. They're like, we can
do it for eighty thousand dollars. He'd like, okay, that's
twenty thousand more than the entire budget for the whole movie.
Speaker 1: Right, Hey, before you get off, Larry cohen Okay, I
just want to give a quick shout out to our
buddy James Buckley. Last week when we did m Versus
Psycho Versus Silence of the Lamb with our friends of
the thirty something podcast. The trivia question that we talked
about during that episode was we covered the movie M
name the only two other movies with one letter titles, right,
and we came up with the movie R and the
movie Z. Well. About ten minutes after we dropped our
episode on Tuesday morning, James Buckley sent me a text
and said, don't forget about the movie q Q, which
I had never heard of before. A right turns out
it's ai Larry Cohen movie.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: The poster looks really cool.
Speaker 2: It's got David Carrodine in it, and there's a dragon
in the city.
Speaker 1: That's something i'd watch.
Speaker 2: Maybe not.
Speaker 1: And then our buddy Dayton Johnson from the Document seventy
seven podcast, he hit me up and said, don't forget
about the movie oh oh oh, which was short for
a fellow. I think, oh, they did that pretty recently,
ten or fifteen years maybe, right. Okay, So thanks guys,
we really appreciate you listening.
Speaker 2: There's a way to get a shorter title than one letter.
Speaker 1: That's one point.
Speaker 2: I don't know, underscore.
Speaker 1: Somebody out there have the balls to make a movie
with just the decimal point.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, okay. So John Landis is looking for somebody
to make his costume. The guys who are professionals are
too expensive, but they've got a business card for this
kid who's just come by. They hand the business card
to John Landis and the business card says Rick Baker,
monster maker. Love it and he's just a kid, Like
they're both just kids. John Landis is twenty one, Rick
Baker is twenty. They get together and John Landis is
this hyperactive, crazy guy, and Rick Baker is this kind
of shy, subtle kid at the time, but he's making
these amazing monster things inside his mom's up right right,
and he ends up doing the special effects for Schlock.
Speaker 1: Yes.
Speaker 2: While they're working together, John Landis tells him about this
script idea that he has, and he says, I've got
this werewolf movie idea, and what has to happen is
the change, the metamorphosis has to be painful. Do you
think you could do something like that?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Rick Baker's like, yeah, sure, sounds fun Yeah, exactly right
on my alley. But the problem is nobody wants to
make the movie right. They can't tell whether it's a
comedy or a horror movie. It's funny and it's scary,
but what do we do with that. There's a combination.
I mean, I don't understand that. I mean there have
been comedy horror movies in the past. I don't know
why I don't think this.
Speaker 1: First of all, I'm spiking the football.
Speaker 2: This is not a comedy, but it's hilarious.
Speaker 1: There's funny parts.
Speaker 2: It's it's not a comedy, You're right. I mean you
start off the movie with two young kids who are
both dead by the end of the movie.
Speaker 1: There are funny situations.
Speaker 2: There's lots of funny situations.
Speaker 1: And the fact that there's young boys involved. They say
funny things and they do funny things. Yeah, but it's
a horror movie, definitely.
Speaker 2: Okay, keep going, okay, Oh no, yeah, something well, I.
Speaker 1: Was just going to say when you're talking about the development.
John Landis wrote this when he was a teenager, right,
so you know, for Kelly's heroes, he's in Yugoslavia, he's eighteen,
nineteen years old. He writes basically the same script we
see on screen for American World from London, but he's
nineteen years old.
Speaker 2: Right, Rick Baker said the script that he read back
in the early seventies, except for the porn theater. Right,
It was almost identical word for word for what they
put on the screen. Right. And the reason that the
porn theater was a porn theater was because Piccadilly Circus
had changed in that ten year time period. Originally, it
had been a regular movie theater that showed cartoons, and
so it was supposed to be this cartoon movie and
they would show cartoon violence interchange with the real violence.
But by the time they start filming it, it's porn theater.
Speaker 1: So when Rick Baker and John Landis were discussing in
American World of London back in the seventies, they had
this kind of agreement that when I make this, you're
going to do the makeup. And Rick Baker's like, heck, yeah,
I am, because that's what I want to do, right,
and Rick Baker's like, ten years past and nothing had happened, right.
Speaker 2: Well, they both go on, I mean, John Landis gets
a lot of work just from the script, right, people
don't want to make the movie, but they say, here's
a talented guy, and so he starts getting and of
course Rick Baker is doing work including by the way,
I just found this out the day special effects on
Flesh Gordon. I'm not kidding like it is. Had His
first credited special effect is schlock. His second one is
Flesh Gordon.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna start somewhere.
Speaker 2: Well, they were great special effects. If you look at
the IMDb, all of the pictures are the special effects.
They didn't they didn't have any other pictures from the
movie Google search. So, as you mentioned, ten years go by,
and they're both doing other work. Rick Baker's getting special
effects work, and John Landis starts directing some movies, movies
that we've talked about in the past. He directs the
Kentucky Fried movie, which was the original Zucker Brothers production, right,
and then that leads him into Animal House. Yes, fantastic,
huge hit. Right then, just before this movie comes out,
they release The Blues.
Speaker 1: Brothers, another humongous hit.
Speaker 2: Right. But right at the time that The Lues Brothers
is coming out, there's this book that's come out called
The Howling. So in nineteen seventy seven. This book had
come out by Gary Bradner. I think it was his
fourth book, but it was like a new series and
it was called The Howling. It's about this woman who
gets attacked and raped and has to goes to like
a country town to kind of recuperate.
Speaker 1: You said, rape. Yeah, a little different than the movie.
Speaker 2: A little different than the movie. And it's a town.
It's not like you know, a spa for the you know,
mentally disturbed. It is a town, okay, and that's where
the were wolves come in. Right. She's stressed out because
of her experience, and then she's got these werewolf hearings
and soundings going on, and so they're like, is it
the psychosis or whatever? You know? So he writes this
movie called The Howling. Studio picks it up. They say, okay,
we want Jack Conrad to direct. So Jack Conrad and
this guy named Terence Winkless work on a script together
and it's pretty bad. And just I gotta say this,
this is the one of the rabbit holes that I
went down. Okay. So Terrence Winkless, he gets a credit
on this, He gets a writing credit on this. But
among the other things that he's done in the past
is to play Bingo the Gorilla on the Banana Splits
Adventures La La, which was directed by Don't tell me
Richard Donner.
Speaker 1: That's right, whoa are you serious?
Speaker 2: Yes, whoo big Donner, there you go. Okay. So they
look at that and like, this is really bad, guys,
don't We don't like this, and so we're kind of
going to go a different way with it, and they
pick up Joe Dante. At this point, all that Joe
Dante has done is Pirana piranha. Yeah. So it wasn't
like a big you know, win for them. It's like,
we got this guy who did a movie that was
a pretty good Jaws knockoff, which also had a Belinda
Bolanski who's in this movie, right, Terry, Right. And so
they get Joe Dante and he picks up this guy
who is also a Roger Corman guy with him named
John Sales. Yeah, talked about it in the past, that's right. Yeah,
And he says, hey, John, and he's just come help
me work on this script, and he tries to make
it fit to the novel a bit more, and ultimately
they just say, you know what, just forget the novel,
just make it your own. And that's the script that
we end up with.
Speaker 1: Here's the funny story about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Joe Dante was the director of the movie, and
he had been pretty critical of the book, and so
he was given a speech at a Hollywood script writing institute. Right,
He's given them a lecture and he started talking, and
he's bad mouthing the book, okay, and a man raised
his hand in the audience and he stood up and
he said, so you don't like the book. And he's like, yeah,
I think I've been pretty clear I don't like the book.
Guy's like, well, my name is Gary and I wrote that.
Speaker 2: Oh gosh, yeah, okay. So ouch. So I've watched I
watched the documentary on this, right, and Joe Dante talks
about how he and the author didn't really get along,
but doesn't go into any more detail than that. So
I did not know this. It's fantastic. So once they've
determined Okay, we've got the director, we've got a better script.
We need somebody to do the special effects. Let's get
this guy, Rick Baker. And Rick Baker's like, you know,
it's been ten years. I think I could do this.
And it might not be a problem.
Speaker 1: It's been ten years.
Speaker 2: It's been ten years.
Speaker 1: I'm ready to do a werewolf movie, right, Except as
soon as he signs on to do The Howling he
kind of just gets started. He gets a phone call
from John Landis, who's like, guess what, good news. I'm
greenlit on this movie, American Wereolf in London, and we're
finally gonna make our werewolf movie. And Rick Baker's like,
bad news, dude, I'm already making a werewolf movie with
this other guy. And he's like, you bleep it he bleep,
You've been bleep bleepp. He's like, all right. So Rick
Baker went to him and said, hey, I've had an
agreement with guy for a long time. I'm sorry, I've
got to step away. So Rick Baker steps away from
The Howling to do American Wolf in London.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the guy he leaves in charge is Rob Boden,
and Rob ends up doing a great job with it.
Speaker 1: Well, like we said, the highlight of The Howling is
the transformation scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, both these movies did a great job.
Speaker 2: So The Howling was doing so well that it actually
won the Saturn Award in nineteen eighty before it was
even released. Wow, isn't that crazy? I didn't know that, right,
So we mentioned this. It's released in April. They filmed
American Werewolf in London from like February to March, so
like right before it's supposed to come out, they're filming
American Wolf Werewolf in London. I'm wondering how much access
like Landis and his folks had to the Howling.
Speaker 1: I bet you Rick Baker had read the script, no question,
no question. So and then here comes Rick Baker. I
bet they knew a lot about.
Speaker 2: It, right, Okay, So you ready talk casting.
Speaker 1: Let's start casting. Okay, I don't have tons on Howling.
Let's start there.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay. So first star of the movie d Wallace, Yes,
d Wallis Stone, d Wallace Stone. Another major actor in
the movie is Christopher Stone. She wasn't d Wallace Stone
at the time. They were just engaged. They're engaged, and
they needed a guy to play her husband in the movie.
She was already signed on, and she's like, I know,
the sure way to not get my fiance this part
is to say, hey, my fiance is an actor. So
she says, you know, I know this guy, god, what
is his name? He'd be great for this part. Chris
Chris Stone. Chris Stone. You should give him a call. Yeah, wow,
And so they call him in. He comes in and
he gets he does his audition, he does a great
job with it, and so a little later on they
call him to offer him the part. And when they
call d Wallace answers the phone right. The casting director's like, oh,
d I'm sorry. I must have dialed the wrong number.
I must have mixed your number up with this Chris Stone.
And she's like, no, you call the right number. He's like,
do not tell me. She's like, yeah, I'm sorry. We're engaged.
He's like, oh my gosh, I don't see how if
you've read the script that you want your fiance to
be in this.
Speaker 1: Movie, I would like to watch my fiance and our
marriage sleep with other women and turn into it where
a wolf that tries to kill me.
Speaker 2: Can you do a naked scene with a really really
hot woman?
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes, yes, so, and just.
Speaker 2: On that scene real quick. We'll just hit it now.
Speaker 1: Let's hit it now.
Speaker 2: Joe Dante, he's a little awkward, he's kind of a
got the Joe Pesci kind of thing. It's a little awkward,
and he goes up to d Wallace. He's like, Uh,
we're tomorrow, We're we're filming the Fireside Wolf love making. Uh.
She's like, what are you trying to say, Joe. He's like,
I was just wondering if you were planning to be there.
She's like, it sounds like you don't want me there, Joe.
Well it might make it a little bit awkward, it
might be easy. And she's like, that's fine, I won't come.
I won't come. And so she went and drank all day.
Speaker 1: That's funny story. I had not heard that before. Here's
my funny story with that scene. Okay, so you have
Elizabeth Brooks, Yes, and she's hired to play the super sexy,
mysterious Marcia Werewolf, right right. She's sort of casting that
spell on Christopher Stone and he starts to not be
able to resist her anymore.
Speaker 2: Right right.
Speaker 1: So she has this big naked sex scene in the woods. Yeah,
and she had read the script and was familiar with it.
But she's like, I knew I was supposed to be nude,
but I thought they were going to like cover me
with smoke and stuff and I'm listening to them. She
was very much against nudity, and she came out against
Joe Dante's really mad yeah that he showed so much
of her.
Speaker 3: H huh.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, you were standing there, your clothes were
off right, How do you not know? I mean, this
is a major scene in the movie, Come on, right, ridiculous.
Speaker 2: Maybe she expected them to animate the smoke in like
they did with that last.
Speaker 1: Scene, the cartoon scene.
Speaker 2: Cartoon scene.
Speaker 1: Why why when you watch this movie, yep, you have
it goes from like cinemas after dark to like wolves
getting it on, like half human half wolves, and then
you have like cartoons getting it on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks like Lord of the Rings, the animated version.
It's pretty bad.
Speaker 1: It's bad.
Speaker 2: And apparently I guess they had that clip from the
advertisements that they had done, like the trailers and previews
and stuff that they had done, and they just stuck
it in there. But I don't think it was originally
intended to be in the movie, and I don't think
they should have put it in it. It wasn't necessary.
Speaker 1: It was distracting.
Speaker 2: It was, yeah, definitely distracted.
Speaker 1: Just one thing on casting. Yeah, Elizabeth Brooks took the
part of Marcia. Yeah, that part was actually offered to
Annette Haven. Does that ring any bells with you?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Okay a net Haven, Yes, was a triple X porn
star from the seventies.
Speaker 2: Glad Glad.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh yeah, I know, oh my, oh yeah, okay,
but she she didn't get the part, but apparently it
was close. She probably would have been a little more
comfortable with the nudity getting it on scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, well that's interesting. So along as as long
as we're on the topic of nudity. Yes, de Wallace
also was against the nudity, and she was like, okay,
I understand that this love making scene has to happen
or whatever, but she had it in her contract that
there would be no other nudity scenes in the movie
at all, not just her, but like nobody, nobody else
could be nude. She wouldn't be a part of a
booby movie, right, right. And so they come to do
the final scene, the barn scene where everything is revealed,
and she said, she walks on the set and there
are boobies everywhere. They've really got a ton of women
and completely naked, all ready to do this scene, and
She's like, what's going on here? And they're like, well,
we just need to film this final scene. And she's like,
why are there naked people? We don't need naked people
for this final scene. Yeah, and they're like, well we
really the producers just feel like it's important that we
have you know, we reach a certain demographic and you know,
there's gonna be a lot of teenage kids who are
into this movie or whatever. She's like, I have it
in my contract there will be no more boobies. So
I'm gonna sit down and I'm not gonna take part
in the scene until these ladies are clothed or gone.
And they're like come on, She's like, I'm not kidding.
I'm not shooting it. They're like d and he's like,
not shooting it, and he goes, I have to call
the producer. She goes call it, and so she hears
him on the phone. You know, twenty minutes go by.
He comes roaring up in his car. He burst out
of the car, obviously really angry, right, jumps out of
the car, goes into the bar and looks around. He's like,
you're right, this is ridiculous. Get these women out of here.
I'm sorry you had to go through this, Ms Wallace.
Speaker 1: That's good. I thought I thought he was gonna go
full on wolf and wolf out, you know. Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, okay, story,
that's a great story.
Speaker 2: So the movie starts with our psychiatrist, who ends up
being a major player in this one. Yes, and he
is played by an actor named Patrick macnee. Do you
know him? No, you know the old British Avengers, the Avengers. Yeah,
it was like a super spy. Yeah, yeah, he was
that guy. He was the main guy in the Avengers.
Really yeah, and so he checked him out. He has
an interesting childhood. His mother was a socialite and his
dad was like a horse trainer. And while his dad
was gone, she got involved in another relationship and they
ended up separating and she went to live with her
new lover, whose name was Evelyn. This is nineteen twenty nine,
not that I mean in today's world, you know, one
hundred years almost later, not such a big deal, but
nineteen twenty nine. She was the heir to the Doer's
whiskey fortune, and she ended up paying for much of
Patrick's schooling, and he just referred to her as uncle Evelyn.
Speaker 1: Interesting, now, you know that he is the only confirmed
werewolf that we see zero transformation from.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: Everybody else wolf's out at some point.
Speaker 2: Yeah. He's also one of the only actors in the
world who have portrayed both doctor Watson and Sherlock Holmes
on screen. And you know what TV series he was
Sherlock Holmes en No magnum p I nice. Yeah, well
he thought he was Sherlock Holmes.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 2: So then we've got Dennis Dugan, who we've talked about before,
mister Happy Gilmore.
Speaker 1: He's the director of all the Adam Sandler movies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he is the guy who was in Moonlighting,
who was the fiance of Simple Shepherd's character.
Speaker 1: I feel like we just talked about this.
Speaker 2: We did, but it's okay, yeah, it's all the tapestry, right.
Speaker 1: It's really cool how this all goes together. All Right,
So let's talk about Robert Paccardo.
Speaker 2: Okay, So Robert Ricardo is the main werewolf.
Speaker 1: He's Eddie, he's the super bad wear his chasing d
Wallace around from the very beginning.
Speaker 2: Yes, and so he had been he'd gone to Yale
as a pre med student, decided to drop out to
pursue acting, had done well, was on Broadway and this
was his debut movie.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, And I heard him where he's like looking
at himself in the mirror with the melted face and
the werewolf half stuff, and he's like, I was on Broadway.
Speaker 2: I was pre med at Yale And somebody looks at
him and goes, he did read the whole script, right,
And so I heard this. He tells this story, and
then you know, we're researching both the movies. Rick Baker
tells an identical story with Griffin Dunn. Yes, Griffin was
in his you know, torn to shreds makeup, and he's
just looking more and more depressed, and Rick Baker's like,
what's wrong. He's like, this is just the first time
I've ever been in a feature movie and look at me.
And Rick Baker says, well, maybe read the whole script
next time.
Speaker 1: It's a good lesson.
Speaker 2: Yep. So Patrick macnee's character is named George Wagner.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: George Wagner is the name of the director of the
original Wolfman from nineteen forty one. Right, The director for
Frankenstein meets the Wolfman William Neil, which is Christopher Stones
that's director. The director for the Curse of the Werewolf
from nineteen sixty one is Terence Fisher, which is Belinda
Blanski's name, Terry yep. Okay, you've got the Legend of
the Werewolf, which was directed by Freddy Francis, and Freddy
Francis is played by Kevin McCarthy, who you will know
from the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers or I
Feel like You and Me from Interspace the bad guy,
Never Beaged, Never beg He was also in Twilight Zone,
the Jodante part of Twilight Zone I Love. And then
you have Earl h who directed House of Dracula, and
Earl Kenton was the name of John Carradine's character. John
Carradine was actually in House of Dracula. Is that is cool?
You've got Sam Newfield who directed The Mad Monster. Sam
Newfield's the name of Slim Pickens character. And then you
have Charles Barton who directed ab In Costello Frankenstein and
Charles Barton is the name of Noble Willingham's character.
Speaker 1: What in the wide wild world of sports is going
on here?
Speaker 2: Okay, so let's talk about Slim Pickens. Okay, so Slim Pickens.
I had to guy, and I was like, oh, I
finally get to research Slim Pickens. So Slim Pickens is
not his real name. He was born Lewis Lindley junior.
He's a dairy farmer with his daddy and he decided
to start rodeoing. He had gotten pretty good at riding
horses and stuff, and his dad found out about it
and said, you cannot do that. You're gonna get hurt,
You're gonna get killed. No sir, no way, no chance.
But he made some pretty good money rodeo and he
was pretty durned good at it, and so he had
sneak away, sneaks away to be in the rodeo and
he says, what's the prize money, and he goes, well,
for kid like you, Slim Pickens, and he goes, yeah,
that's my name, Slim Pickens.
Speaker 1: Love it.
Speaker 2: And that's how he gets his name, as he uses
a pseudonym for the rodeo, so his dad doesn't know
that he is rodeoing around.
Speaker 1: That is a fantastic story.
Speaker 2: Well give me the mind. He gets better.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: He enlists in the army because World War two, right,
and so he goes and he when he's doing his enlistment,
they say, what's your profession and he says, oh, I
did rodeo, And somehow that gets misread into radio and
he spends the entire time of his enlistment at a
radio station in the Midwest, which is how he gets
in entertainment.
Speaker 1: That's fantastic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, you blow me away. All right. Let me
just touch on John Carrodine real quick. He's the unmistakable
old man with the deepest voice you've ever heard in
your life. Did you me imediately think of anything whenever
you saw when you heard him speak. No, I heard
that voice and I was like, that's the owl from
Secret of nim Sure enough it is.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: John Krodine, who is the father of David Carrodine, Keith
Carrodine and John Cardy.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: David Carrodine, by the way, in Q, which we just
talked about. Oh cool, okay, And we can't leave without
talking about a couple of important guys. All right. We've
got Dick Miller, who's in all of Joe Dante's movies
because he was in so many of the Roger Corman movies,
right right. You've got Kenneth Toby who've talked about before.
He was the guy who was in the original the Thing.
He was the gas station attendant in Grimlins. He's the
guy in Airplane who says he's a danger to everything
in the air. Yes, birds too. And you've got Jim
mccrell as Lou Landers, who also is in Grimlins as
Lou Landers. There you go, and is also in another
Werewolf movie. He's the principal in Team Wolf.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's himself?
Speaker 1: That is fantastic. You're blowing my mind. So basically what
we're saying is the Howling and Grimlins take place in
the same universe.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yes. Who As a matter of fact, if you
watch Grimlins closely on the refrigerator is a little smiley
face that's just the calling card of Eddie Quist.
Speaker 1: Yes, okay, let's go over to the casting of American
Werewolf in Lone. Okay, so you've got basically you've got
three main characters, right, yeah, I mean, say for the doctor. Okay,
So you've got Griffin Dunn who plays Jack Goodman. You've
got David Naughton who plays David Yep. You've got Jinny
Agutter who plays Nurse Price. All right, and you've got
John Woodvine, who plays Doctor Hirsch. Yes, okay, yep.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: John Landis we've already said, is super energetic, super hyper.
He's here, he's there, He's here, he's there. So Griffin
had never done a movie before, so he didn't even
really audition for this. He just shows up, shakes John
Landers's hand. They talked for ten minutes and he's like,
you're Jack. Yeah, nice, Okay, that's all.
Speaker 2: That's it.
Speaker 1: That's it, you got it, okay. David Knaughton had done.
He was kind of famous for doing the Dr Pepper commercial.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you remember the Doctor Pepperer. Oh I absolutely do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm Pepper Pepper Pepper. Wouldn't you like to be Pepper?
Two sang yeah.
Speaker 2: He was also in a TV series called Making It.
Speaker 1: He's the one who sings the theme song like.
Speaker 2: Theme song to the TV series that he started in, which.
Speaker 1: Ends up being a top five hit. I said that
to you the other day, and it is fantastic.
Speaker 2: It is disco at his past.
Speaker 1: Let's listen to that, Ladies and gentlemen. Is the star
of an American wor up in London singing disco.
Speaker 2: It's good stuff.
Speaker 1: It is good stuff. So when David Naughton met with
John Landis, they sat down, they had a conversation and said,
well he was a pepper, I was a pepper. So
we hit it up. Then Ginny Augutor, she had been
an actress for a while, she had started as a dancer,
had been like a child actor. Yeapirteen fourteen.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, she's very girl next door and I would
not mind having her as my nurse.
Speaker 1: Nurse price. So anyway, I was telling my son, he
was asking about this podcast. Ye, she is actually in
the Winter Soldier. She plays a part. She's one of
the councilwomen in Winter Soldiers. So she's still doing stuff.
Speaker 2: And if you don't remember her, she's the one that
it turns out she's black widow in a costume. That's right,
tears her face off.
Speaker 1: That's right. Also, David Knatton just throwing this out there. Yeah,
David Knaton starred in the greatest ski movie of all time.
And as you know, I am a big skier and
I'm a big fan of Hot Dog the movie.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, moving on, yeah, so just say this,
Griffin Dunn. Yes, so randomly, yesterday I'm watching The Hacks
with Casey right, and one of the characters mentions this author,
and I was like, oh, who's that. I'll look that
person up and I look her up and I'm like, oh,
this is interesting. And then I see that there's been
a documentary made about her life which has been pretty
well received. And it turns out it's directed by her nephew,
Griffin Dunn. It's like, oh wow, and I said, that's
the point I started researching him. Did you know that
Griffin Dunn's sister was in Poltergeist?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: She plays the teenage daughter in Poltergeist, which is interesting enough.
I didn't know that. But she's she died like the
nex Yeah, boyfriend, abusive boyfriend kills her and then ends
up only getting three years for voluntary manslaughter.
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with some of the Poltergeist story, which we
need to talk about sometimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I did not know that was Griffin Dud's sister.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Wow, crazy, Okay, I'm gonna blow your mind for a minute.
Speaker 2: Yes. Yeah.
Speaker 1: John Lannis was very clear that he wanted to hire
two young not even men yet, like there's still boyish
right right, college students, but he was very specific he
wanted unknown actors right the studio said how about Dan
Aykroyd and John Belushi.
Speaker 2: I saw that. I saw that. How weird of a
movie would that have been?
Speaker 1: That would have been much harder to distinguish between comedy
and horror, Oh for sure. It would also would have
been very cool to see John Belushi torn to shreds
at the beginning?
Speaker 2: Which one of them dies, which one of them dies,
which one of them is Jack? And which one of
them's data?
Speaker 1: I think it is John Belushi.
Speaker 2: It's got to be right, because he's slower, right, I
think was he ran track? Right? He was in the
that's true? Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, So here's an interesting thing for you. So
Frank Oz is actually in American War from.
Speaker 2: London, yeah, right, in all of John Landis's movies except
for Coming to America, where when they get to the airport,
they announced, Frank Oshowitz please pick up.
Speaker 1: That's right. Yeah, we talked about that. Yeah. So Frank
Oz is the American delegate mister Collins, right, okay, and
he's the one who's like, mister Kessler, calm down, right, okay.
So he and if you listen, then I'm like, that
is miss Piggy talking right now. Yeah, okay, So he
actually plays two parts in this movie. You know, one
part is mister.
Speaker 2: Collins and the other part's Miss Picky.
Speaker 1: The other parts miss Piggy.
Speaker 2: Yep, there's a part where they're watching and this is interesting.
I didn't really pick up on this before, but it's
all over this movie. You've got the Muppets, and you've
got Mickey Mouse, and you've got Donald Duck, and they
are all animals who are otherwise anthropomorphic like humans. Okay,
And during the change scene, just to let you know
if this isn't just a coincidence, during the change scene,
there's a moment where he's just looking right at Mickey Mouse,
who's just smiling back at him. That's Donald Duck is
on the banister behind it.
Speaker 1: Interesting. Yeah, you know that that Muppet show, that particular
Muppet show that you see in an American world from London,
was never shown in the United States. Violent so Americans
just think, wow, they made a special Muppet show for
the movie. Yeah, it's not the case. They just didn't
show in the US.
Speaker 2: Was punching Judy's going on?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: What it is?
Speaker 1: Punching Judy. Michael Beck, who was in The Warriors, was
considered for the part of David Kessler. Okay, okay, but
PolyGram didn't want him because he had been in Xanadu
and Xanadu flopped.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting that David Knaughton had a crush
on Jenny Outigator.
Speaker 2: He did.
Speaker 1: I don't blame him.
Speaker 2: Well, the shower scene, dude, we've talked about this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I called you this week and I said, there
are jobs where your your job is to make out
with Jenny Agutor for two days in the shower naked,
naked naked and get paid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which sounds nice, But I don't know that seems
like after a while you'd get a little awkward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you'd be Yeah. So they were supposed to be
college students, but David Natton was thirty, Griffin was twenty six,
and they didn't know each other at all before filming.
Speaker 2: He was thirty, he was thirty. That means he's seventy
right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's nuts.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing. So they didn't know each other at
all before they started filming, but because they were from
the same part of the United States, Northeast, Connecticut, I think,
and they were also the only Americans in the crew,
so they became fast friends.
Speaker 2: They're the only Americans in the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I mean John Landis.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, no, I guess so.
Speaker 1: So listen to this. When they were casting for Jack,
before they had hired Griffin Dunne British Filming Board whoever
looks over all this stuff and okays their filming permits
and stuff. They said, everything was fine except the part
of Jack. We would like that to go to an
English boy. There's no reason why an English actor can't
play an American. And John Landis is like, look, dude,
that's the guy I want. They're like, no, we really
and they started to squeeze him. He's like, you know what,
I'll just change this to be an American world from Paris.
Thank you very much, see you later. And they're like okay,
and then they caved.
Speaker 2: So it's interesting that you say that. So do you
know how they decided to make that first scene in Wales.
Speaker 1: No.
Speaker 2: When he started doing his research, he was like, okay,
where have the most you know where wolf sightings occurred
and the answer is France and Wales. And since he
didn't speak French, he went with Wales.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: So but as it turns out, he was willing to
go to France too. I guess.
Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of let's just talk, should we talk about
sequels for right now?
Speaker 2: We can do it because it needs to be done,
and he did before we get.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about sequels real quick. Yeah, I've seen an
American World from Paris.
Speaker 2: I have too. Saw it in the theater.
Speaker 1: I did too.
Speaker 2: We probably both saw it in Tulsa.
Speaker 1: It was okay. See I had free tickets and I
was pissed.
Speaker 2: Ian were they ever? Openny?
Speaker 1: Yes? And I feel like kind of a jerk because
I had a friend who won free tickets and thought, hey,
let's all go together. And then I was kind of
an irate jerk after I got out of there because
it was so bad.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: I mean, the story wasn't a particularly well done story,
but the werewolves were CGI, and they weren't just CGI,
they were nineteen nineties CGI. And it was not Jurassic Park.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: It was horrible.
Speaker 1: It was horrible, really horrible. Something should have called Rick Baker.
Speaker 2: That's all I have to say about that.
Speaker 1: Have you seen the Howling Part two?
Speaker 2: I've seen the ending credits that, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: So they went to Elizabeth Brooks and asked her back
after she was mad at them for showing too much
of her boobs, right, and they said, guess what more
boobs on display in part two? She said nope, I'm out.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So they got Sybil Danning to be like the.
Speaker 2: Who has no trouble at all showing her boobs, right,
But as it turns out, she was kind of tired
of being that girl and she's like, I don't want
to do that. I don't want to do that in
this movie. They're like, well, that's kind of why we
came to you, and she's like, okay, once, one time,
I will do it. One one boob take and that
is it. That is all one, right, And so they're like, great,
sounds great. Now. They had all kinds of other boobies
in the movie, but they took her scene where she's
ripping her shirt off, right, and in the ending credits
it is shown no less than fourteen times.
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, let's capitalize on what we got. Keep
showing that. In the closing credits.
Speaker 2: Tho credits it was used like the rhythm section.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 2: Before we leave casting on American were Wolf in London,
we got to mention some stuff because we got we
got a decent fan base over in the UK, and
there are some guys that are not as familiar to us,
but for the folks in the UK, they are well
known faces. You've got David Schofield, who he's been in
like all of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie. He
was like the evil a lot of them anyway, he's great.
You've got Brian Glover playing the chess. You've got Leela
Kay and you've got Rick Mayol, who you will know
from Drop Dead. Yes, so he was Fred. He was
the drop Dead Friday. He was a comedy actor out there.
And then there's one This is interesting, just a brief
scene of the bus driver when everything's chaos, yeah, in
the streets, right right, the brief scene of the bus driver.
And the actor's name is Vic Armstrong. Okay. He was
the stunt man for both Christopher Reeve in Superman and
Harrison Ford in not only Raiders of the Lost Arc
but basically everything. Like he was the go to stuntman
for Harrison Ford.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Well you bring that up. John Landis had
a background in being a stunt man. Yep, there's an
awesome scene and you are blowing my mind right now.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: To continue with that thought, there's a scene where a
bus hits a man knocks him through a window during
the chaotic scene of Piccadilly Service yep, and that's John Landis. Yeah,
so he and he gets tagged man not through the window, right, Yeah,
it's awesome.
Speaker 2: Yeah. That I think is probably the most unsettling scene
of the whole It's not the weirdwolf victims that are
unsettling to me. It's seeing the people go flying through
the glass and then run over in the streets and
then laying there and broken glass. It's pretty horrific.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And what's interesting about that that was the first time
in fifteen years they had let a film be filmed
in Piccadilly Circus. And the way that he got it
was he went to the police, the local police, and
he said, I will give you a free showing of
the Blues Brothers and they all came to see the
Blues Brothers together and they were so impressed that they said,
all right, we will let you film on the streets
of Piccadilly Circus. And it was like from one am
to four am, so that entire scene they had filmed
in just that really short time span.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, all right, So just a couple of tidbits
on production for American warwol from London. Okay. The reason
why John Landis really wanted to do London you mentioned
the fact that they spoke English definitely helps.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of the things he said was London was horror central. Right,
that's the place of Jack the Ripper and jackal and
Hyde and the Werewolf of London, right, And he wanted
that Gothic Victorian London feel. Yeah, and as an American,
it is unsettling to be away from your home country,
so it it kind of added to the to the tension.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 1: Also, in order to get an R rating, he had
to tone down the sex scene and cut out apart
where Jack ate a piece of toast and it fell
out of his throat. He also dropped a scene where
the werewolf kills three homeless men. You actually run into
those guys in the theater and get to meet those.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you see them before they're killed and after they killed,
but not while they're killed.
Speaker 1: Right. All right, guys, we're gonna take a quick break.
Speaker 2: We want to give you guys access to our new feature,
which is the Shirley showcase we have got from the
thirty something movie podcast.
Speaker 1: Mister Pat Cannagallo, he's given his opinion on Deaf Lewards
Pyromania album versus def Leopards Hysteria album. Here's from Pat.
Speaker 3: Hey, guys, Pat here with final judgment on def Leopards
Pyromania versus def Leopards Hysteria. Two great albums, one amazing
awesome band. Like, how are we gonna decide this? That's
that is my dilemma. So I have gone back and forth.
I have waffled. I have one day been ready to
come in and say Pyromania, the next day come in
ready to say Hysteria. I gotta be honest, I don't
think I can say which one is the Obviously, I
can't say which one's the better album, Which one do
I like more? Again, I don't know if I can
do that. So I think what I'm gonna do is
just note what I see is the differences. Right, So Pyromania,
fantastic album, fantastic album.
Speaker 1: The band sounds awesome, You've.
Speaker 3: Got great tunes. You've got some that have a little
bit more metal to them. Some that are a little
bit more classic rock. You have the stadium rock anthem tune,
great vocals, drum work, incredible guitar solos. The songs are
interesting to listen to, right, You get interesting intros, you
get interesting outtro those great solos, the whole thing. I mean,
if you want to rock, that's the album to do
it too.
Speaker 1: Hysteria.
Speaker 3: What do I gotta say about Hysteria? Also phenomenal rock
and roll album. Love listening to it. When I think
of def Leppard, I think of Hysteria. When I think
of def Leppard's characteristic sound, I think of the album Hysteria.
It's like the melodies, the guitar riffs that they're playing
kind of go up to another level. It'd be a
bad pun to say they take it up to eleven,
but the guitar riffs are like a different level. They're
just that much more interesting. The songs are just that
much more complex. Again, great rock. You got pour some
sugar on me. I remember when that thing came out.
I remember when the video came out and it showed
that they had the laser show on stage on the video.
Just incredible, incredible music. So if I had to pick
a favorite. I couldn't. If I had to pick a
better album, I certainly couldn't. I guess if I'm going
to do final judgment, I'll have to give the nod
to Hysteria, because that, to me is like def Leppard's
characteristic sound. When I think def Leppard, I think of
the album Hysteria. Still, I listened to Pyromania, and I'm
like just rocking all the way through that one. So
maybe I'll say Pyromania.
Speaker 1: No, I'll stick with Hysteria.
Speaker 3: All right. I don't know how I'm gonna decide. I
think I'll just listen to them both and then throw
on adrenalize for good measure. All Right, guys, love the show.
You're doing a fantastic job.
Speaker 2: Wow, oh man, I love Pat. Pat is one of
my favorite guys in the whole wide world. He is
always mentioning us on their podcast. I love listening to him,
and I totally get it. It's a really hard decision
to make.
Speaker 1: Pat knows how to appreciate awesomeness. What can you say,
but these two albums are awesome.
Speaker 2: They are They're truly incredible, And when we did our podcast,
I was sure I was picking Hysteria and then Pyromania
snuck up and won me over. Definitely go check that out.
If you haven't heard it yet, definitely go check out
the thirty something Movie Podcast. If you are not familiar
with that. Those guys are awesome. Take a look at
movies from thirty years ago and give some incredible insight
and discussion. It's great stuff.
Speaker 1: That's right. Pat's a great guy. He never has a
bad way to say about anybody. I mean, we could
bring him on and talk Josh for it. He would
find the great things about that mate. Check them out
on the thirtieth The Movie Podcast, Pat, thank you so
much for weighing in on def leverards, Pyramania, and Hysteria.
Speaker 2: So that does it for this episode. Be sure to
check us out next week. Be sure and whatever podcast
app you're using to hit that follow button or subscribe
button so that it automatically appears in your feed and
you don't miss a single episode of the Surely you
Can't Be Serious Podcast.
Speaker 3: To romance need the cover of Thomas Guys.
Speaker 2: You know the leaser