Following the death of publishing tycoon Charles Foster Kane, reporters scramble to uncover the meaning of his final utterance; 'Rosebud'.
Director: Orson Welles
Writers: Herman J. Mankiewicz (original screenplay), Orson Welles (original screenplay)
Stars: Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, Dorothy Comingore - (IMDb)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033467/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0
Discovery Spot
If… (Crime, Drama) (1968)
In this allegorical story, a revolution led by pupil Mick Travis takes place at an old established private school in England.
Director: Lindsay Anderson
Writers: David Sherwin (screenplay), David Sherwin (original script: "Crusaders")
Stars: Malcolm McDowell, David Wood, Richard Warwick - (IMDb)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063850/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_261
Trash & Treasure Corner
The Stuff (Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi)
A delicious, mysterious goo that oozes from the earth is marketed as the newest dessert sensation, but the tasty treat rots more than teeth when zombie-like snackers who only want to consume more of the strange substance at any cost begin infesting the world.
Director: Larry Cohen
Writer: Larry Cohen
Stars: Michael Moriarty, Andrea Marcovicci, Garrett Morris - (IMDb)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0090094/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1
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00:00:00
Generic: All right, let me go to the movies, play it for Harry.
00:00:04
Play it for me. Just put your lips together and look, go
00:00:07
ahead, make my day.
00:00:09
Fasten your seat. Then it's going to be a bumpy nut. I got a
00:00:13
bad feeling about this. I feeling we're not in Kansas
00:00:16
anymore. Frankly, am I here?
00:00:17
I welcome to the Classic Film Club with Richard Kuipers. Hello
00:00:23
and welcome to the Classic Film Club. The podcast dedicated to
00:00:26
taking a fresh look at famous films of the past and shining a
00:00:30
light on less famous, overlooked and forgotten films that are
00:00:34
well worth discovering.
00:00:35
Richard Kuipers: I'm Richard Kipper, a film critic for the
00:00:37
international trade paper variety film festival programmer
00:00:41
and documentary producer, inviting you to join me on this
00:00:45
cinematic adventure of discovery and celebration. Today, I want
00:00:49
to take a look at one of the most famous films ever made from
00:00:53
1962 until 2012.
00:00:56
It was number one in the top 10 films of all time critics poll
00:01:00
conducted by the respected British magazine, Sight And
00:01:03
Sound and it's widely regarded as the best debut feature ever
00:01:07
made Orson Welles was just 25 years old when he directed, co
00:01:13
wrote and played the lead role in Citizen Kane, which was
00:01:17
released in May 1941.
00:01:19
6 months before the US entered World War II, telling the life
00:01:24
story of fictional media tycoon and political aspirant Charles
00:01:28
Foster Kane. Citizen Kane was nominated for nine Oscars
00:01:32
winning only one for the original screenplay by Wells and
00:01:35
Herman Jay Mankowitz.
00:01:37
It performed well at the box office without being a smash hit
00:01:40
and it got mostly positive reviews including one from
00:01:44
Newsweek who praised Orson Welles as quote, the best actor
00:01:49
in the history of acting. On the other hand, the tattler said
00:01:52
Welles's movie was the well intentioned muddled amateurish
00:01:57
thing one expects from highbrows by the early 19 fifties.
00:02:02
It was largely a forgotten film. But thanks to screenings on the
00:02:06
new fangled device called television and an influential
00:02:09
1956 essay by film critic Andrew Saris in film culture magazine,
00:02:14
Citizen Kane began its re emergence first. It became a
00:02:18
great American film within a few years.
00:02:21
It was frequently being hailed as the greatest film of all
00:02:24
time. Other films have claimed that title in countless critics
00:02:29
and public polls over the years gone with the Wind Battleship
00:02:33
Potemkin raging bull vertigo. The list goes on but none quite
00:02:38
have the same aura and mystique as Citizen Kane.
00:02:42
When critics and publicists want to describe the best of a kind,
00:02:45
they still use the term the Citizen Kane of Night of the
00:02:50
living Dead has been called the Citizen Kane of zombie movies.
00:02:53
The sex pistols film, the great rock n roll swindle was promoted
00:02:57
as the Citizen Kane of rock movies.
00:02:59
And at the very other end of the scale, we have midnight movie
00:03:03
favorite. The room being described as the Citizen Kane of
00:03:07
bad films. Few motion pictures have inspired such awe and
00:03:12
intrigue as Citizen Kane or at the immense story it tells and
00:03:16
the techniques it employs and intrigue about every aspect of
00:03:20
its production.
00:03:21
From the moment it began filming in secret with largely unknown
00:03:25
actors before being released amid boycotts from some cinema
00:03:28
chains and fear of lawsuits from William Randolph Hearst, the
00:03:32
media tycoon whose business and private life has some very
00:03:36
strong parallels with the central character hurst
00:03:40
prohibited any of his newspapers from even mentioning the film we
00:03:44
could spend forever talking about that.
00:03:46
But let's get to the film itself. How does Citizen Kane
00:03:48
shape up almost 80 years later? How well has it stood the test
00:03:53
of time? And what can we take from it today?
00:03:56
I hadn't seen Citizen Kane for about 20 years before I gave it
00:04:00
a refresher run just recently. What struck me right away after
00:04:04
the R K O radio pictures logo one of the best of all time and
00:04:08
I never get tired of looking at it is the opening credit a
00:04:11
Mercury production by Orson Welles immediately.
00:04:15
It has the air of an event, something that's not merely a
00:04:18
movie but the unveiling of a major work of art. And in 1941
00:04:23
it was with Wells already being hailed as a young genius. In
00:04:28
1937. At the age of 22 he and John Houseman founded the
00:04:32
Mercury Theater Repertory Company in New York.
00:04:36
A year later, Wells frightened the pants off listeners with the
00:04:39
Mercury's radio production of H G Wells war of the Worlds
00:04:43
convincing many that Earth was actually being invaded by
00:04:46
Martians. As the first images of Citizen Kane appear, we could be
00:04:51
forgiven for thinking we're in gothic horror territory.
00:04:54
The camera lingers over shots of Xanadu, a dark foreboding castle
00:04:58
guarded by a huge gate with the letter K and a no trespassing
00:05:02
sign with Bernard Herman's brilliant score setting a somber
00:05:06
tone. We could be looking at the house of Usher or Dracula's
00:05:10
castle.
00:05:11
Then after two minutes and 30 seconds, we see a close up of an
00:05:15
old man's lips. He utters the film's first line of dialogue
00:05:19
and it's one of the most celebrated and discussed words
00:05:22
in cinema history. That word is Rose Bud. Of course, Rose Bud is
00:05:27
the dying word of Charles Foster Kane.
00:05:30
And it holds the key to understanding so much about the
00:05:33
life of this extremely rich, powerful and ruthless man. It's
00:05:37
like the riddle of the Sphinx. Why did Kane say it? What does
00:05:41
it mean? The task of finding out goes to newsreel reporter Jerry
00:05:45
Thompson played by William Allen in his only significant acting
00:05:49
role before Thompson begins the detective work of interviewing
00:05:54
everyone close to Kane.
00:05:55
We're given a rousing account of the dead man's life in the form
00:05:58
of a newsreel such as audiences used to watch in cinemas for a
00:06:02
small admission fee.
00:06:04
In the days before television, we learn about Kane's
00:06:07
astronomical wealth and the building of Xanadu with 20
00:06:11
tons of marble, enough artifacts to fill 10 museums and a
00:06:15
collection of animals to rival Noah's Ark. The newsreel
00:06:19
narrator tells us that some people called Kane, a Communist.
00:06:22
Others thought he was a fascist, loved and hated in equal
00:06:26
measure.
00:06:26
He met Hitler and played down any concerns about war. He was
00:06:31
married and divorced twice, once to us, president's niece Emily
00:06:34
Monroe Norton and once to Susan Alexander, a singer of modest
00:06:39
ability at best for whom he built an opera house and forced
00:06:43
her to embark on a humiliating career.
00:06:47
It's a dazzling opening 10 minutes setting up Kane as a
00:06:50
towering figure of staggering wealth, but also a man who died
00:06:54
alone and aloof. And I think this is one of the main reasons
00:06:58
why Citizen Kane remains relevant and powerful today.
00:07:01
Kane is a man who had everything and yet nothing. In 1941. This
00:07:06
was a bold and subversive theme to present the American dream of
00:07:10
wealth, success and power as being empty. Meaningless.
00:07:15
Kane collected things and people. But for reasons, we will
00:07:19
slowly discover he was unwilling or perhaps even incapable of
00:07:23
finding happiness. We may dislike Charles Foster Kane from
00:07:27
the outset, but we're fascinated by him, maybe even compelled to
00:07:31
feel some sympathy as the screenplay spins back to his
00:07:35
poor childhood and recounts events that made him one of the
00:07:38
richest men in the world by the age of 25.
00:07:42
Now, there have been many, many Charles Foster Keynes in the
00:07:45
movies over the years. And for me, the most memorable is Daniel
00:07:48
Plainview, the Oil Man played by Daniel Day Lewis. In there will
00:07:52
be blood the 2007 drama by director Paul Thomas Anderson.
00:07:57
That many critics voted as the best film of the year and a
00:08:01
decade.
00:08:03
The personality of Kane and the business empire he creates is
00:08:07
strikingly relevant today, his first foray intermedia is with
00:08:11
the struggling New York inquiry. Newspaper. Kane chooses
00:08:15
sensationalism over substance to boost circulation, yellow
00:08:19
journalism or tabloid journalism to give it the common names.
00:08:23
It's a wildly successful move that eventually makes him the
00:08:26
usa's most powerful media magnate and increases his
00:08:30
political influence. He may have been an amalgamation of real
00:08:34
life moguls such as William Randolph Hearst and Joseph
00:08:38
Pulitzer, whom audiences of the day would have been familiar
00:08:40
with.
00:08:41
But for every generation since the release of Citizen Kane,
00:08:44
there have been media magnates whose business methods and
00:08:47
personal lives have drawn strong parallels with aspects of
00:08:51
Charles Foster Kane.
00:08:53
We've had Lord Lou grade or low grade as he was called by some
00:08:56
of his critics, Robert Maxwell, the Italian publisher and Prime
00:09:01
Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his infamous bunga bunga parties
00:09:05
and closer to home here in Australia, the Packer Empire,
00:09:08
Sir Frank Kerry and James and the Murdoch family, well former
00:09:13
Australian citizen in the case of Rupert Murdoch, who started
00:09:16
out with just the little old Adelaide advertiser all those
00:09:19
years ago and build an empire, including the so called news
00:09:23
channel, Fox News, the acclaimed HBO series succession about
00:09:28
venal and vicious machinations inside a media family comes
00:09:32
directly from the Citizen Kane playbook and bears remarkable
00:09:36
similarities with certain media dynasties of today.
00:09:40
It's as if Charles Foster Kane has always existed in that
00:09:43
junction between myth and reality, fact and fiction and he
00:09:47
probably will forever more in film and television. Now, back
00:09:51
to the film as Thompson, the journalist continues his
00:09:54
investigation into the meaning of Rose Bud.
00:09:56
We meet the support players in Kane's life. That's all anyone
00:10:00
could ever hope to be an extra or a possession like the
00:10:04
thousands of artworks he acquired and never looked at
00:10:07
again as if knowing that he owned it and somebody else
00:10:10
didn't was all that mattered. First of all, there's Kane's
00:10:14
best friend Jed Leland played by Joseph Cotton.
00:10:17
He's a reporter for the Inquirer and acts as the conscience of
00:10:20
the film. Then there's Kane's first wife, Emily played by Ruth
00:10:25
Warwick, who was married six times herself in real life.
00:10:29
Emily's deteriorating relationship with Kane is shown
00:10:32
in a brilliant series of camera pans and edits with the
00:10:36
characters sitting at the same kitchen table.
00:10:38
But over the course of many, many years, Everett Sloan plays
00:10:42
Bernstein Kane's loyal business advisor who overlooks all of
00:10:47
Kane's faults and gives him unconditional love because he's
00:10:51
come closer than anyone to understanding the darkness in
00:10:54
Kane's heart and soul.
00:10:57
But most importantly, there's Susan Alexander portrayed by
00:11:00
Dorothy Comming Moore. She was discovered by Charles Chaplin
00:11:04
and only had bit parts under the name Linda Winters before
00:11:07
landing the role of her life in this film, Susan is the film's
00:11:11
innocent.
00:11:12
At first, Kane's initially attracted to her because she
00:11:16
doesn't recognize him and presumably doesn't want anything
00:11:19
from him. It's what Kane wants Susan to be that destroys her,
00:11:24
insisting she become an opera singer despite not possessing
00:11:27
the requisite talent and building a grand theater for her
00:11:31
to perform in one that becomes a prison of humiliation.
00:11:35
Unlike the untalented Susan Alexander, Dorothy Comming Moore
00:11:39
is superb in the role that made her immortal on the screen but
00:11:43
also destroyed her life and career.
00:11:45
The popular notion has always been that Susan Alexander was
00:11:48
based on Marion Davies, the young mistress of William
00:11:51
Randolph Hearst Hearst even formed a production company.
00:11:55
Metropolitan Pictures to promote her career. Davies was actually
00:12:00
a skilled comedian, but Hearst wrecked her career by insisting
00:12:04
she appear in stodgy historical dramas.
00:12:07
Although Wells always denied Davies was the inspiration and
00:12:11
he always publicly praised her talents. Hearst went for Dorothy
00:12:15
Comore with a vengeance. Her left wing political leanings
00:12:19
were all he needed to ruin her career.
00:12:21
Eventually driving her into a state mental home, alcoholism
00:12:25
and a tragic early death aged just 58 stories such as the fate
00:12:31
of Dorothy Comore go beyond the film. But over time, they've
00:12:35
become part of the film. That's what happens so often with movie
00:12:39
classics or cult films, the stories behind them are
00:12:42
something we take with us when we watch the film, think of
00:12:45
apocalypse.
00:12:45
Now, for example, with all those tales about Marlon Brando and
00:12:50
the apocalyptic filming conditions, knowing about these
00:12:54
things can affect how you see the film. Once you even know a
00:12:57
little bit about W R Hearst Marion Davies and the Hearst
00:13:01
Castle that inspired Kane's Xanadu Mansion, their presence
00:13:05
inhabits the picture hovering in your mind as you watch Orson
00:13:09
Welles and Dorothy Comming Mo.
00:13:12
If you want to know more about Hearst and Davies, I really
00:13:14
recommend you Seek out the Cats meow, directed by Peter
00:13:18
Bogdanovich. It's a terrific drama about the 1924 death of
00:13:22
producer Thomas Ins during a party on Hearst's Yacht.
00:13:25
It's got a fantastic cast including Kirsten Dunst as
00:13:28
Marion Davies, and Eddie Izzard as Charles Chaplin. I
00:13:32
deliberately haven't said much about the early sections of the
00:13:35
film showing Charles Foster Kane as a boy, which also featured
00:13:39
The Great Agnes Morehead as his mother.
00:13:42
If you haven't seen the film, these segments are best
00:13:44
encountered with as little knowledge and information as
00:13:47
possible. I promise you, it's not just a sweeping story of
00:13:51
Citizen Kane that helps it stand up so well, 79 years after it
00:13:55
was released, it's technically very impressive with superb
00:13:59
editing and cinematography.
00:14:01
Standing out, the editor was Robert Wise, who became a very
00:14:05
successful director and won Oscars for West side story and
00:14:08
the sound of music wise cut the film in non linear fashion with
00:14:13
the timeline of Kane's life jumping backwards and forwards,
00:14:17
creating a mosaic that we piece together as part of the viewing
00:14:21
experience.
00:14:22
This kind of non linear editing has been common since the
00:14:25
seventies and reached new heights with films such as
00:14:28
Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. But in Hollywood at the
00:14:32
time, it was rare to find anything much more complex than
00:14:35
simple flashback sequences.
00:14:37
The dialogue too is delivered at a rapid fire rate. Wells's
00:14:41
background in radio is evident here. This was common in
00:14:45
screwball comedies of the times but not in weighty serious
00:14:48
dramas such as this though.
00:14:50
It also has to be said that Citizen Kane does have its fair
00:14:53
share of amusing moments. One of the very few things about
00:14:57
Citizen Kane that reminds us of its age is the frequent use of
00:15:02
wipes in editing where one shot replaces another by moving from
00:15:06
one side of the frame to another. We don't see wipes used
00:15:10
much these days or fades to black for that matter.
00:15:13
The emphasis nowadays is on hard and increasingly faster cutting
00:15:16
to hold the attention of contemporary audiences. A lot
00:15:21
has been said about the brilliant cinematography of
00:15:23
Greg. Toland Wells even placed Toland on the same frame as him
00:15:27
in the credits so highly did he regard his work?
00:15:31
It's true that Toland's deep focus photography which allowed
00:15:34
everything in the frame to remain in focus regardless of
00:15:37
how far it was from the camera is truly extraordinary and it's
00:15:41
used for powerful emotional effect.
00:15:45
The same can be said for his stark lighting of sets such as
00:15:48
the echoy empty halls of Xanadu and the massive fireplace that
00:15:52
stands taller than Kane himself. Many of these camera and
00:15:56
lighting techniques had been used in earlier films such as
00:16:00
Nosferatu, the Cabinet of Dr Caligari and other German silent
00:16:04
classics.
00:16:05
But like the non linear editing, they hadn't been used quite like
00:16:10
this in a big mainstream Hollywood film Wells and Toland
00:16:14
adopted and adapted techniques and methods from everywhere,
00:16:18
bringing European stylistic touches to this very American
00:16:21
story and helping it to remain visually stimulating and
00:16:25
striking. Even today.
00:16:28
In more recent times, we've seen filmmakers such as Quentin
00:16:30
Tarantino, bringing elements of Asian action movies and
00:16:34
Spaghetti Westerns to his films with thrilling results in their
00:16:38
own way. Wells and Tolland brought that kind of world
00:16:42
cinema to Hollywood almost 80 years ago.
00:16:46
Watching Citizen Kane today is like viewing a Timeless
00:16:49
masterpiece in an art gallery. Something that time simply can't
00:16:53
touch as long as movies are being watched, talked about and
00:16:56
taught about at schools and universities. Welles' film will
00:16:59
be part of the conversation.
00:17:02
Wells was far from a one hit wonder he directed and often
00:17:05
starred in great films like The Magnificent Ambersons. His 1942
00:17:09
follow up at RCA and it was drastically cut by the studio.
00:17:14
There was the trial from 1962. An adaptation of Franz Kafka's
00:17:17
classic novel Mr Arcain in 1955 was a fascinating Citizen Kane,
00:17:23
like tale of a mysterious millionaire.
00:17:26
And then there's his 1958 crime masterpiece, Touch of Evil,
00:17:31
which for me is his second best film and comes very close to
00:17:35
rivaling Citizen Kane. In fact, everything with Welles's name on
00:17:39
it is worth watching. Even his lesser films offer extraordinary
00:17:43
moments. He appeared just as an actor in lots of terrible films
00:17:47
like Butterfly in 1982.
00:17:49
But that was always because he wanted to raise money for his
00:17:52
own projects and that's forgivable for an artist such as
00:17:55
Wells. You can watch Citizen Kane on Prime video. And if
00:17:59
you're interested in films about Citizen Kane, I recommend
00:18:03
seeking out R K 281 starring Lee Schreiber as Wells. There's also
00:18:08
me and Orson Welles starring Zac Efron and Claire Danes.
00:18:12
And finally, there's a wonderful, wonderful scene in
00:18:15
Tim Burton's film, Ed Wood, which stars Johnny Depp as the
00:18:19
famously inept filmmaker, Ed Wood. Look out for the moment
00:18:23
when Wood has a deep and meaningful conversation with
00:18:26
Orson Welles played by Vincent Donofrio. It's truly magical.
00:18:33
spk_2: Put together. You're listening to the Classic Film
00:18:36
Club with.
00:18:37
Richard Kuipers: Richard Kipper now to our Discovery Spot where
00:18:41
I take a look at special and important films that aren't
00:18:44
those world famous titles we've all heard of. And they've
00:18:47
sometimes just slipped out of you and become another title.
00:18:50
You could easily pass by on the menu of Netflix or Prime or
00:18:54
Stan.
00:18:55
When there are so many thousands and thousands of films out
00:18:58
there, it can be really hard to find the real gems and that's
00:19:01
exactly why I'm here. Some listeners will already know and
00:19:04
love these films and I couldn't be happier to celebrate that
00:19:07
with you for others. I hope these discovery films might be
00:19:10
exciting new movie treasures that come into your view.
00:19:14
There's something I really love about British cinema from the
00:19:17
late 19 fifties to the mid 19 seventies. And my discovery pick
00:19:21
for this week comes from the middle of that. From 1968. It
00:19:25
won the Grand Prix at Cannes and was named by the British Film
00:19:28
Institute as the 12th greatest British film of the 20th
00:19:32
century.
00:19:33
It was the start of a loose trilogy that followed the
00:19:35
eventful life of a man named Mick Travis, Malcolm McDowell
00:19:40
soon to be famous as Alex DeLarge in Clockwork Orange made
00:19:44
his debut as Michael Travis in if if tells the story of three
00:19:49
students leading a violent rebellion at a repressive boys
00:19:52
boarding school.
00:19:54
The year it was made is very important if was filmed while
00:19:57
the main 1968 riots in Paris were in full force and it
00:20:02
carries that anti establishment fury in every single frame. The
00:20:06
director Lindsay Anderson co founded the British Free Cinema
00:20:10
movement of the 19 fifties.
00:20:12
And he succeeds in if in creating a scathing satire of
00:20:15
the British class system and conservative institutions. With
00:20:19
this heavily allegorical drama. The basic story finds Mick
00:20:23
returning to an unnamed school for his second last year, year
00:20:27
11 for us in Australia.
00:20:29
He and his best friends, Knightley and Wallace are
00:20:32
idealists and dreamers who just don't fit into the discipline
00:20:36
and the strict hierarchy of the school where the seniors or
00:20:39
whips as they're known, have special privileges including
00:20:43
scum scum are junior boys who serve them basically as slaves.
00:20:49
The headmaster, the school chaplain and most of the
00:20:51
teachers represent British conservatism and authority. As
00:20:56
the term progresses, Mick and his friends run deeper and
00:20:59
deeper into trouble and are eventually given a brutal caning
00:21:02
by the whips. That's when they decide to really rebel where it
00:21:07
goes from. There is something to behold at one moment.
00:21:10
If is gritty British realism. The next moment it becomes
00:21:14
surreal, even dreamlike, especially when Mick and
00:21:18
Knightly steal a motorbike and drive to a roadside cafe where
00:21:21
Mick has an unforgettable encounter with an unnamed
00:21:25
waitress played by the incredible Christine Noonan whom
00:21:29
you'll never forget.
00:21:30
Once you see this, there's one particular look she gives to
00:21:33
Mick from across the counter. It's simply incredible and it
00:21:37
gives me goose bumps just thinking about it and talking
00:21:40
about it. Now, I first saw R when I was a rebellious teenage
00:21:44
school boy and it spoke to me very loudly.
00:21:47
It's one of those films that changed my life and inspired me
00:21:50
to think about the institutions that govern our lives. I must
00:21:54
have seen it at least 10 times on the big screen in the
00:21:57
seventies and eighties and I even wagged school when channel
00:22:00
seven broadcast it as a midday movie. I watched it for the
00:22:04
first time in about 15 years just recently.
00:22:07
Always a risk with movies, music, books, anything you've
00:22:11
loved from childhood and early adulthood in case it doesn't
00:22:15
stand up anymore all these years later, if still packs a huge
00:22:20
punch and it's lost none of its edge.
00:22:23
It's a timeless dateless film that's still radical in form and
00:22:26
content and still has the power to inspire us to challenge the
00:22:30
status quo and think about authority as surreal as it
00:22:35
sometimes gets, if always rings true. The screenplay by David
00:22:40
Sherwin was based largely on his memories of attending Tonbridge
00:22:44
School in Kent, founded in 15 53 would you believe?
00:22:48
And it was filmed at Lindsay Anderson's old school Cheltenham
00:22:51
College. It has a wonderful support cast including Arthur
00:22:55
Lowe as the housemaster, Peter Jeffrey as the headmaster and
00:22:59
Mona Washbourne as the school nurse. Importantly, the
00:23:04
soundtrack also really helps this film in its timelessness
00:23:07
and its statelessness.
00:23:08
It doesn't have rock and roll or pop songs from the era. It uses
00:23:12
African Sanctus, a beautiful recording of African Sanctus as
00:23:16
its key musical theme. And it brings something incredibly
00:23:20
special to the atmosphere and the aura of this film.
00:23:24
Malcolm McDowell played the character of Mick Travis in two
00:23:27
more films directed by Lindsay Anderson and written by David
00:23:30
Sherwin. Oh Lucky Man in 1973 and Britannia Hospital in 1982
00:23:37
though not strictly Sequels, they followed Travis as an
00:23:40
English. Every man negotiating his way through a country that
00:23:44
is sometimes cruel, sometimes glorious and always fascinating.
00:23:49
Many people myself included regard o Lucky Man as at least
00:23:53
the equal of if and like if it's one of the greatest British
00:23:58
films of all time. It's a magnificent unforgettable three
00:24:02
Hour Odyssey, which also features Helen Mirren Arthur
00:24:05
Lowe, Sir, Ralph Richardson and many other cast members from if
00:24:10
including the magnificent Christine Noonan.
00:24:13
Finally to my trash and Treasure corner where we highlight the
00:24:16
very best in bee movies, exploitation films and other
00:24:20
trashy delights never feel guilty about your guilty
00:24:23
pleasures. That's my motto.
00:24:25
And today I'd like to introduce you to a great little horror
00:24:28
thriller from 1985 called The stuff. The premise is fantastic.
00:24:35
A new dessert ice cream called The stuff has been launched onto
00:24:39
the market. It's a smash hit and everyone just can't get enough
00:24:43
of the stuff, but naturally nothing that good could be good
00:24:47
for you and there's a sinister secret to its success.
00:24:51
The stuff was directed by Larry Cohen. One of the great
00:24:53
exploitation filmmakers of the seventies, eighties and nineties
00:24:57
who cranked out gems like the demonic cop thriller, God told
00:25:01
me to and cued the winged serpent, which is one of the
00:25:04
best monster movies of the eighties.
00:25:07
In fact, I think it's one of the best monster movies of all time,
00:25:10
like all of Larry Cohen's best films. The stuff is very wicky
00:25:14
and very clever beneath the crazy story of this mysterious
00:25:18
ice cream lies a sharp critique of corporate ethics and
00:25:21
political corruption.
00:25:23
It's got a great cast with Coen, regular Michael Moriarty,
00:25:27
Cathy's brother playing an industrial saboteur who gets in
00:25:31
way over his head. And Paul Silvino also plays a scary
00:25:35
military type. You can see the stuff on Prime. It's great fun.
00:25:39
A real drive in movie treat that might just send you down the
00:25:42
rabbit hole of discovering more of Larry Cohen's terrific work.
00:25:46
And on that note, I'm about to sign off, but not before.
00:25:49
Thanking you all for listening. I hope you've enjoyed this
00:25:52
meeting of the Classic Film Club and I'm looking forward to our
00:25:55
next cinematic adventure. Bye for now. You can't go now.
00:25:59
Generic: Work here is done. I love a happy ending to the
00:26:03
Classic Film Club with Richard Kipper, available on Apple
00:26:07
Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, I Heart Radio or
00:26:12
wherever you get your podcasts. This has been another quality
00:26:16
podcast production from bites dot com.