Footloose (1984) vs. Purple Rain (1984)" Movie to Movie Pt 1

<v Speaker 1>Daily Beloved.
<v Speaker 2>We are gathered here today to get through this thing.
<v Speaker 1>Called but Surely you can't be serious podcast.
<v Speaker 2>We are so excited today we are going to do
<v Speaker 2>two gigantic projects from nineteen eighty four. We are going
<v Speaker 2>to look at Princess Purple Rain movie versus the Footloose movie.
<v Speaker 1>And then we're gonna look at the Footloose soundtrack and
<v Speaker 1>the Purple Rain album.
<v Speaker 2>It's gonna be a little bit tricky because we're going
<v Speaker 2>to try and stay distinct between all the projects.
<v Speaker 1>In other words, we're gonna want to talk about the
<v Speaker 1>music really really bad. We're talking about the movies, but
<v Speaker 1>we are going to try our best to wait until
<v Speaker 1>it's album time to talk about the music. But since
<v Speaker 1>these movies are both so music centric, it's gonna be hard.
<v Speaker 1>It's gonna be hard, right, Okay.
<v Speaker 2>Our executive producer today is one of my best friends
<v Speaker 2>in the entire world, mister Chris Bauer.
<v Speaker 1>Chris Bauer, thank you so much for subscribing through Patreon.
<v Speaker 1>We appreciate you and your wonderful ideas. He's given us
<v Speaker 1>some stuff that I'm like, oh, we need to try
<v Speaker 1>to do that.
<v Speaker 2>Still, the funniest guy I've ever met in my entire life.
<v Speaker 2>We used to call him Bomber in high school.
<v Speaker 1>So thank you, Bomber, executive producer for the show, Bomber Bomber,
<v Speaker 1>Thanks buddy. So remember that this is the Summer of
<v Speaker 1>nineteen eighty four series, and as a reminder, these two
<v Speaker 1>albums were among the only five albums of the year
<v Speaker 1>to be a number one spot. Like we had, Thriller
<v Speaker 1>got knocked out of its place by Footloose the soundtrack,
<v Speaker 1>and then along came Huey Lewis and knocked it Out,
<v Speaker 1>which we've covered just recently, which was then knocked out
<v Speaker 1>by Bruce Springsteen born in the USA, which we compared
<v Speaker 1>to Huey Lewis, and then of course Bruce Springsteen was
<v Speaker 1>ultimately knocked out by Purple Rain. Now I've already done it,
<v Speaker 1>I've already started talking albums. But it's important to know
<v Speaker 1>that these albums wouldn't be the same without the movies.
<v Speaker 1>Oh absolutely.
<v Speaker 2>And before we go too far down the road, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>you mentioned all the number one albums of nineteen eighty four. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>Prople Rain took over in August and Reign Supreme through
<v Speaker 2>the end of the year. Yes, do you know the
<v Speaker 2>album that knocked it out of its number one spot.
<v Speaker 1>No, what was it?
<v Speaker 2>It was born in the USA by Bruce Springsteen.
<v Speaker 1>Oh he made it comeback nice. Well, let's get into
<v Speaker 1>the movie, shall we yes? Kick off your Sunday shoes
<v Speaker 1>and here we go. You could fly if you'd only
<v Speaker 1>cut loose.
<v Speaker 2>Let's go footloose.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, So our story on Footloose starts back in the
<v Speaker 1>night tenth century. I know, right, this is amazing. So
<v Speaker 1>we have a unique circumstance. Here we are guys who
<v Speaker 1>are recording from Oklahoma and Elmore City was the inspiration
<v Speaker 1>for this movie Footloose.
<v Speaker 2>Elmore City, Oklahoma is a small town. My son's high
<v Speaker 2>school football team has played Elmore City.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and when I was when I first started in
<v Speaker 1>the DA's office, Elmore City is in Garvin County, which
<v Speaker 1>is where I was, So I was very familiar with
<v Speaker 1>Elmore City. It was one of the cities that I
<v Speaker 1>had and I didn't know until pretty far on in
<v Speaker 1>my career that, oh hey, Elmore City is the inspiration
<v Speaker 1>for the movie. Footloose. Had a girl who worked in
<v Speaker 1>the office, Chryl god Rest her soul. She was from
<v Speaker 1>Elmore City. And then another guy that I've brought up
<v Speaker 1>several times who's been my friend for years now. Mister
<v Speaker 1>Arlin Bullard also grew up in Elmore City. Okay, that's fantastic. Okay.
<v Speaker 1>So Elmore City was founded back in eighteen ninety eight,
<v Speaker 1>and that is when they put the law into effect
<v Speaker 1>that there was no public dancing allowed in the city.
<v Speaker 1>It was religious based. You'd still hear talk back in
<v Speaker 1>the seventies of you know, if this is the Bible belt,
<v Speaker 1>Elmore City is the buckle, sure, right. And so in
<v Speaker 1>the late seventies, some high schoolers like who they were
<v Speaker 1>freshmen at the time, they started saying, hey, you know,
<v Speaker 1>we don't want to just have a banquet, We want
<v Speaker 1>to have a prom. But you couldn't have a prom
<v Speaker 1>because public dancing was outlawed, right right. And so what
<v Speaker 1>they did was they did like a lawyer would do,
<v Speaker 1>and they worked their way around the law. It was
<v Speaker 1>this moment in the city council that there was some
<v Speaker 1>magic that was worked. But I can tell you this.
<v Speaker 1>The trick was the wording of the law said you
<v Speaker 1>couldn't have public dancing. So what they said was, well,
<v Speaker 1>how about we have a private dance? And the only
<v Speaker 1>way that they could do that was to go through
<v Speaker 1>the school. So the city council said, hey, if it's private,
<v Speaker 1>it's not against the law. Do what you want to do. So,
<v Speaker 1>unlike the movie where they had to go and fight
<v Speaker 1>the city council on this, what they had to do
<v Speaker 1>in real Elmore City was they had to fight the
<v Speaker 1>school board. The school board did not want to have
<v Speaker 1>a private dance. The religious feelings were still strong in
<v Speaker 1>the seventies and dancing could lead to you know, sex
<v Speaker 1>is lusty desires, absolutely right. So there were a couple
<v Speaker 1>of people, Mary Temple Lee whose dad was actually on
<v Speaker 1>the school board, and a guy named Leonard Coffee who
<v Speaker 1>still works down at the at Rural Electric and Lindsay,
<v Speaker 1>which is a town near Elmore City, and another guy
<v Speaker 1>named Rex Kennedy. And the character Wren is a combination
<v Speaker 1>of Rex and Leonard. It's those two guys. That's fantastic, right,
<v Speaker 1>And then Mary Temple was kind of because her dad
<v Speaker 1>was on the school board, She's kind of that inspiration
<v Speaker 1>for the aerial character wait wait wait wait, wait wait ahead.
<v Speaker 2>Rex and Leonard became Wren. Yes, because I was thinking
<v Speaker 2>to myself, I'm watching footlers so I'm like, Wren cool name.
<v Speaker 1>Never met any one in my life name Wren other
<v Speaker 1>than the partner of Stempy. Yes, that's fantastic.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, Rex and Leonard keep going, Okay, Okay, So this is.
<v Speaker 1>The information that I got from Arlen. All right. So
<v Speaker 1>they actually started petitioning the school board a couple of years,
<v Speaker 1>like in like nineteen seventy eight, when they were freshmen.
<v Speaker 1>The way it works is the juniors were the ones
<v Speaker 1>that would host the prom for the seniors, but we
<v Speaker 1>wanted to be in by the time we are seniors.
<v Speaker 1>And so this is the story that Arln told me.
<v Speaker 1>His dad is a member of the school board. It's
<v Speaker 1>a five person school board, okay, yeah, And so his
<v Speaker 1>dad is a member of the school board. And he
<v Speaker 1>says the first year that they came and petitioned, it
<v Speaker 1>was like unanimous, No, you cannot have a dance. They
<v Speaker 1>were not deterred. Next year they came back, okay, and
<v Speaker 1>it was like okay. One guy finally was like, okay,
<v Speaker 1>you know what, I don't care. They can have it, right.
<v Speaker 1>But the way it works is a five person and
<v Speaker 1>the like the head, the guy who is Mary Temple's father,
<v Speaker 1>He doesn't vote unless he has to be there for
<v Speaker 1>a tiebreak. And so second year three to one, Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>no dance that year. Third year comes along and another
<v Speaker 1>guy falls off and says, you know what, I'm going
<v Speaker 1>to say that it's okay that they have a dance.
<v Speaker 1>And so Arlen has this wonderful story of his dad
<v Speaker 1>being one of the only two holdouts to say, heck no,
<v Speaker 1>I don't want to let him go dance. So they
<v Speaker 1>have a two to two matchup, right to have voted yes,
<v Speaker 1>let him dance, to have voted no. And who is
<v Speaker 1>the tiebreaker. It's Mary Temple's father, Raymond Temple Lee, and
<v Speaker 1>he says, let him dance. I thought that was a point.
<v Speaker 2>Let's dance, all right, that's fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>So there's a great news story that came out in
<v Speaker 1>nineteen eighty and that spawned so much interest that there
<v Speaker 1>ended up being a People magazine article. It was several
<v Speaker 1>different magazines just this, hey, this, you know, hick Town
<v Speaker 1>finally said let the kids dance, and so it made
<v Speaker 1>a lot of national news. And that is what inspired
<v Speaker 1>our dear friend, mister mister Dean Pitchford to write a movie.
<v Speaker 1>That is great story, great story, so tell me about
<v Speaker 1>Dean Pittford.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, Well, so here's what I know about Dean Pitchford.
<v Speaker 2>Dean Pittford is a guy who was born in Hawaii.
<v Speaker 2>You know, he was an actor, a singer, dancer. In
<v Speaker 2>nineteen seventy one, he was cast in a play called
<v Speaker 2>Godspell in New York City.
<v Speaker 3>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>And so he goes to New York City and he
<v Speaker 2>starts to kind of rise in the rinks right there.
<v Speaker 1>Yeap. He actually got caught cast by Bob Fosse, who
<v Speaker 1>we've talked about before.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and he was cast as Pippen in the Broadway
<v Speaker 1>production of Pippen by Bob Fosse. Okay, Okay, Well this
<v Speaker 1>is a guy.
<v Speaker 2>He's been in tons commercials, right, like mainstream commercials, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>like Doctor Pepper and emin M's and like laized potato
<v Speaker 2>chips McDonald's. Okay, So he was of this upcoming star, right.
<v Speaker 1>I wonder if he was in the singing McDonald's commercial
<v Speaker 1>with John.
<v Speaker 2>Amos, that would be fantastic mop and a bucket baby.
<v Speaker 2>So he starts working with other songwriters and he gets
<v Speaker 2>invited to help sort of write these songs for this movie.
<v Speaker 1>Called Fame I'm on a lift. That's his.
<v Speaker 2>So he writes three songs. He he and this other.
<v Speaker 1>Guy whose name I didn't write now Michael Guys name
<v Speaker 1>is Michael Gore.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so he and Michael Gore they collaborate on three
<v Speaker 2>songs for the movie Fame.
<v Speaker 1>Now.
<v Speaker 2>One of them is called red Light, one of them
<v Speaker 2>is I Sing the Body Electric, and one of them
<v Speaker 2>is Fame, the song that everyone knows from Irine Care
<v Speaker 2>listen to it right here.
<v Speaker 1>That song won him a it won him a Oscar,
<v Speaker 1>and it won him a Golden Globe, So not bad. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>So he gets together with a guy named Kenny Loggins
<v Speaker 1>and another guy named Steve Perry. Wait wait, wait wait,
<v Speaker 1>Kenny Loggins and Steve Perry, yes together again for the
<v Speaker 1>first time. Not Logins and Mestina, just Kenny by himself
<v Speaker 1>and not Journey, but Steve Perry by himself, and they
<v Speaker 1>write a song called Don't Fight It, which ends up
<v Speaker 1>being a top twenty hit, also Grammy nominated, and he
<v Speaker 1>co wrote the theme song for Solid Gold.
<v Speaker 2>Solid Gold was the TV show I used to watch.
<v Speaker 2>Oh yeah, I mean it's kind of like a b
<v Speaker 2>substitute for MTV, you know, right, Hey, you know, he
<v Speaker 2>wrote a song for Melissa Manchester. People have kind of
<v Speaker 2>forgotten this one over. It's kind of been buried in
<v Speaker 2>the course of time.
<v Speaker 1>Uh huh. But it was a big hitting's one I
<v Speaker 1>know very well.
<v Speaker 4>It's called you should Hear How She Talks about You.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>For me, that's a little kid, top down, turn up song.
<v Speaker 1>Awesome. So he reads the story about Elmore City, Oklahoma
<v Speaker 1>and the People magazine. He goes down and he talks
<v Speaker 1>to some of the folks down there and gets this
<v Speaker 1>idea for a script. And so what Arlen told me
<v Speaker 1>is that he believes that the character of Preacher was
<v Speaker 1>inspired by this guy named Larry Kern. And Arlan said,
<v Speaker 1>Larry was just the nicest guy in the world, Like
<v Speaker 1>he wanted to take care of everybody, was looking out
<v Speaker 1>for everybody. Just the best guy. But he was somebody
<v Speaker 1>who was preaching against dancing from the pulpit, right like
<v Speaker 1>that every preacher in town was at that point. And
<v Speaker 1>he said, he said that his wife was even nicer
<v Speaker 1>than he was, like she would just love on every
<v Speaker 1>human being, like was her own child. They had this kid,
<v Speaker 1>it was kind of close to Arlen's age that had
<v Speaker 1>a pig in the in the four age competition, and
<v Speaker 1>they would they called the pig Chip because they would
<v Speaker 1>feed Chip chocolate chip cookies. And Chip did fantastic in
<v Speaker 1>the four age and then poor missus Larry Kern cried
<v Speaker 1>her eyes out when the competition was over and Chip
<v Speaker 1>became picking.
<v Speaker 2>Oh my gosh, hey, listen, one thing we want to
<v Speaker 2>be real clear and real gentle about.
<v Speaker 1>These are salt of the earth people.
<v Speaker 2>I think the movie does a really good job of
<v Speaker 2>respectfully talking about these are solid people with morals, not
<v Speaker 2>against people that don't have morals. But these are two
<v Speaker 2>people with differing philosophies. Yeah, but they're both good people.
<v Speaker 1>You know, they're all good people. Well, I mean, let's
<v Speaker 1>I mean to be frank. When I watched this movie
<v Speaker 1>when I was a kid, I despised I thought I
<v Speaker 1>despised the reverend leader. I did not like John Lythgow's
<v Speaker 1>character as a grown man, and I'm not you know,
<v Speaker 1>I certainly don't mind dancing, but as a grown man
<v Speaker 1>watching this, I'm like, he actually was really trying to
<v Speaker 1>do what he thought was best for these people. He
<v Speaker 1>wasn't like, he wasn't this mustache twirling villain he was
<v Speaker 1>somebody who was trying to do what was right and
<v Speaker 1>was moved by a very impactful moment in his life.
<v Speaker 1>So we can get into that here in a little bit.
<v Speaker 1>But it's important to note that, yes, this story was
<v Speaker 1>based on real people, and those real people were not
<v Speaker 1>bad people. No, no, absolutely not. So. Pitchford writes the
<v Speaker 1>screenplay for the movie that will become Footloose. He collaborates
<v Speaker 1>on nine songs with Kenny Loggins, Eric Carmon, Jim Steinman,
<v Speaker 1>Sammy Hagar. We have talked about nearly all of these guys.
<v Speaker 1>I believe we have talked about every single one of them. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>maybe not Eric Carmon, but yeah.
<v Speaker 2>One of these days when we talk about dirty dancing,
<v Speaker 2>his name's gonna come up, you know.
<v Speaker 1>And that's an intes point, you know. We when we
<v Speaker 1>originally talked about doing Footloose, we talked about comparing it
<v Speaker 1>to dirty Dancing because it's kind of the guy girl
<v Speaker 1>perspective on these two, you know, forbidden dance movies. But
<v Speaker 1>I really like the way that we fell out and
<v Speaker 1>landed on this versus purple ring. Yep, me too. So
<v Speaker 1>he writes the script and the film lands with film
<v Speaker 1>director herb Ross. Now we talked about the fact that
<v Speaker 1>Dean Pitchford was a song and dance man. I mean
<v Speaker 1>he was singing and dancing and acting. Herb Ross also
<v Speaker 1>started off as a dancer turned choreographer turned Broadway director
<v Speaker 1>turned film director. He directed a bunch of Neil Simon
<v Speaker 1>stuff Iota be in Pictures. He directed Pennies from Heaven
<v Speaker 1>had Steve Martin in it. He directed Max Dugan Returns,
<v Speaker 1>which we talked about. Matthew brodricks first movie, Yes, and
<v Speaker 1>then he has his first really huge hit with Footloose. Okay.
<v Speaker 1>So here's the deal with Herbert Ross. So he's directed footage.
<v Speaker 2>He's in charge, and he's getting it ready, and he's
<v Speaker 2>picking locations and he's involved in the casting and everything's happening. Well,
<v Speaker 2>he gets a call from Warren Batty, and Warren Batty says, hey,
<v Speaker 2>I like.
<v Speaker 1>What you've done.
<v Speaker 2>Why don't you come and direct my movie called Mermaid?
<v Speaker 1>So he leaves Footloose.
<v Speaker 2>When Herbert Ross gets to the set of Mermaid, he
<v Speaker 2>realizes that he's not really wanted to be the director.
<v Speaker 2>Warren Baty wants to direct the movie, okay, and so
<v Speaker 2>it's one of those where there's too many chiefs and
<v Speaker 2>you know, and he realizes that, man, this is not good.
<v Speaker 2>And in the meantime, Footloose hires a guy named Michael Samino.
<v Speaker 2>And when he comes on board, this is the guy
<v Speaker 2>who directed the Deer Hunter in Heaven's Gate. So, but
<v Speaker 2>he takes over, he starts to try to take it
<v Speaker 2>down a darker path and he wants to change it
<v Speaker 2>all up, rewrite the entire script. And so they said, listen,
<v Speaker 2>this is not working out, so.
<v Speaker 1>They let him go.
<v Speaker 2>Well, in the meantime, Herbert Ross leaves Mermaid Mermaid, not
<v Speaker 2>the Little Mermaid Mermaid right, different area.
<v Speaker 1>Different area. Good, that's funny.
<v Speaker 2>So he calls being pitch for and he says, listen,
<v Speaker 2>I want to come back, and they're like, come on back.
<v Speaker 1>Good timing, we just fired the other guy.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so Herbert Ross comes back and takes over Footless. Right,
<v Speaker 2>let's flip over to the inspiration and the beginnings of
<v Speaker 2>proble Rang.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, Now, if you haven't caught our Sign of the
<v Speaker 1>Times episode, we do some history on Prince. Yeah, we're
<v Speaker 1>not going to go revisit that. If you want to
<v Speaker 1>hear it, go listen to that episode. It's pretty darn good,
<v Speaker 1>if I do say so myself. But I got to
<v Speaker 1>dive a little bit deeper. I read a couple of
<v Speaker 1>books on Prince. One called The Beautiful Ones, which I
<v Speaker 1>encourage everybody to take out, a guy who basically had
<v Speaker 1>no qualification to write a book that Prince handpicked to
<v Speaker 1>write a book. Unfortunately he picked him about three months
<v Speaker 1>before he passed away tragically. So that's an interesting one.
<v Speaker 1>It's called The Beautiful Ones. And then a book called
<v Speaker 1>What's Crazy.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I read Let's Go Crazy. It's written by a
<v Speaker 2>guy named Alan Light. Yeah, and lots of inside information,
<v Speaker 2>lots of tidbits.
<v Speaker 1>If you're a Prince fan, you definitely want to pick
<v Speaker 1>this one up. So in our old episode on Sign
<v Speaker 1>of the Times, I talked a little bit about Prince
<v Speaker 1>being inspired by getting to see James Brown on stage. Right. Yes,
<v Speaker 1>so I think his stepdad, I think, yeah. Yeah. So
<v Speaker 1>there's three. There's like those three imprint moments that people
<v Speaker 1>have in their lives sometimes, and so first imprint moment
<v Speaker 1>for Prince is seeing his dad Prince Rogers no that
<v Speaker 1>was his stage name. See seeing his dad in a
<v Speaker 1>recording studio where it's got all these chairs and the
<v Speaker 1>lights are on him, and he's got these beautiful girls
<v Speaker 1>dancing behind him. That's inspiration point number one. Inspiration point
<v Speaker 1>number two is after his parents end up divorced and
<v Speaker 1>his mom remarries, his stepdad takes him to see James Brown.
<v Speaker 1>Is rumored that he actually got went to go and
<v Speaker 1>dance on stage a little bit, which is how he
<v Speaker 1>got to see stuff going on backstage with the again
<v Speaker 1>pretty girls. Right. And then this is a fascinating one
<v Speaker 1>for me. He and his father did not get along
<v Speaker 1>especially well, but he got along better with his dad
<v Speaker 1>than he did with his mom once they had been divorced, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>And so at some point he says to mom, Hey,
<v Speaker 1>I'm gonna go live with dad. I can't handle stepdad anymore.
<v Speaker 1>I can't handle you anymore. I'm gonna go live with him.
<v Speaker 1>And so he's living with him. And at some point
<v Speaker 1>he says, they're having woodstock and I really want to go,
<v Speaker 1>and his dad says, I'll take it really yes, wow,
<v Speaker 1>And so it's you know, they but his dad. One
<v Speaker 1>of the things that you got to know about his
<v Speaker 1>dad is that he's hyper religious. Right. That was the
<v Speaker 1>big conflict between prince's mom and his dad is that
<v Speaker 1>his mom wanted to go out and have a good
<v Speaker 1>time and party and do crazy stuff. She wanted to
<v Speaker 1>go crazy and and his dad wanted her to be
<v Speaker 1>there and taking care of things and not live in
<v Speaker 1>this wild, crazy lifestyle, and that led to their abusive relationship.
<v Speaker 2>So what you're saying is he's a little bit like
<v Speaker 2>his mother. She's never satisfied, and he's a little bit
<v Speaker 2>like his father too.
<v Speaker 1>Bold. Yeah, something like that. That bomb nugget, Well that
<v Speaker 1>was what I was leading up to you. Oh, okay, sorry,
<v Speaker 1>I keep going, and so he can still you know, Sorry,
<v Speaker 1>I lost my train. Sorry, sorry, that's right. So his dad,
<v Speaker 1>being this ultra religious guy, they got to go to
<v Speaker 1>church on Sunday, like, and the concerts over the weekend.
<v Speaker 1>So he's like, no, and he's only going to get
<v Speaker 1>to go to the last day, and so he's like,
<v Speaker 1>why is church taking so long today? You know it's
<v Speaker 1>long anyway, right, If you went to church in the sixties,
<v Speaker 1>seventies or eighties, you know that church went way longer
<v Speaker 1>than it ever should, right, And so it's taken an
<v Speaker 1>extra long time today. And then they have to go
<v Speaker 1>home and change clothes and he's just you know, jumping
<v Speaker 1>up and down next to the car. But his dad
<v Speaker 1>takes him out there and he gets to see Jimmy
<v Speaker 1>Hendrix and Wowstone and third imprint moment of his life. Wow,
<v Speaker 1>that's fantastic Pool. By the way, on the Jimmy Hendrix note,
<v Speaker 1>Jimmy Hendrix most famous song, Yes, the Purple One.
<v Speaker 2>The Purple One, There you Go, which also appears in
<v Speaker 2>the end of I Want a New Drug.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, flashback here you lose yep, yep. Okay.
<v Speaker 2>So junior high and high school come around for Prince.
<v Speaker 2>He grows up in Minneapolis and he forms his own band.
<v Speaker 2>This band is called Grand Central. Okay, Prince is out front,
<v Speaker 2>He's got this drummer behind him. Yeah, his name is
<v Speaker 2>Morse Day.
<v Speaker 1>I've heard of that guy. Yeah. Yeah. They were a
<v Speaker 1>cover band. Later on he changed up the band. They
<v Speaker 1>started doing original stuff. But yes, it's interesting to note
<v Speaker 1>Morris Day was the original drummer for Prince's very first band.
<v Speaker 2>Like their high school band. Of course I could play
<v Speaker 2>drummer with Prince, and you know you could.
<v Speaker 1>Okay, let's give that. Okay, So he obviously goes on.
<v Speaker 1>We talked about this in our past episode. He gets
<v Speaker 1>himself a record deal. He makes sure that he's producing.
<v Speaker 1>He demonstrates that he's got the chops to play all
<v Speaker 1>the instruments and produce, and his first album doesn't really
<v Speaker 1>do that great right. But one of the singles off
<v Speaker 1>of that first album is Soft and Wet Yes, which
<v Speaker 1>he releases on his twentieth birthday. So that song made
<v Speaker 1>an imprint for a couple of other folks. One of
<v Speaker 1>them's name is Wendy Melbourne, Whndy was thirteen. She said,
<v Speaker 1>I can remember the day I'm thirteen, I'm underage in
<v Speaker 1>this dance club in La and i hear this song
<v Speaker 1>Soft and Wet start playing and I'm like, oh my gosh,
<v Speaker 1>and i run over to the DJ and I'm like,
<v Speaker 1>who is this girl? Who is this girl? She's like
<v Speaker 1>that moment is a vivid memory for me, and I
<v Speaker 1>became a huge Prince fan. This is long, long before
<v Speaker 1>they ever meet, but that seed is planted and impactful
<v Speaker 1>in her life. The other person that had imprinted was
<v Speaker 1>Susan Rogers, who was also She was in West Hollywood.
<v Speaker 1>She's on a bus and she hears this boombox coming
<v Speaker 1>from the back some kid in the back of the
<v Speaker 1>bus as his boombox playing soft and wet, and she's like,
<v Speaker 1>I got to know more about who this guy is.
<v Speaker 1>And of course she goes on to be the producer
<v Speaker 1>of a huge body of his work. Yeah. We talked
<v Speaker 1>about her in our Sign of the Times episode Yep. Okay.
<v Speaker 1>So the other thing about that first album, though, is
<v Speaker 1>it was a part of a three record deal that
<v Speaker 1>he had signed right right, and they had given him
<v Speaker 1>one hundred and eighty thousand dollars to record those first
<v Speaker 1>three albums and he spent one hundred and seventy of
<v Speaker 1>it on the first album. Oh yeah, and so he's
<v Speaker 1>not doing too well.
<v Speaker 3>You know.
<v Speaker 1>It wasn't as big as success. Even though it influenced
<v Speaker 1>those girls, it wasn't a big success for him. His
<v Speaker 1>management gets bought out by these guys named Bob Cavallo
<v Speaker 1>and Joe Ruffalo buy it out for fifty thousand dollars.
<v Speaker 1>Cavallo and Ruffalo managed Earthwind and Fire and Ray Parker Junior,
<v Speaker 1>who came up last episode if you'll remember, Yep. And
<v Speaker 1>one of the guys that had working for him was
<v Speaker 1>a guy named Steve Farknoley and he was just an
<v Speaker 1>employee at the time, but he had worked with Sly
<v Speaker 1>and the Family Stone, which Prince was a huge fan of,
<v Speaker 1>and so they hit it off, and so Steve Fagnoli
<v Speaker 1>became like Prince's day to day business manager and eventually
<v Speaker 1>became partners with Cavallo and Ruffalo. So this is early
<v Speaker 1>eighties by this time, and we've almost reached a pinnacle
<v Speaker 1>point and that is the album nineteen ninety nine.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, so most people were familiar with nineteen ninety nine.
<v Speaker 2>He had had some success off of Dirty Mind and Controversy,
<v Speaker 2>but nineteen ninety nine is really where he came into
<v Speaker 2>the mainstream, right, right, So he had the big hit
<v Speaker 2>nineteen ninety nine.
<v Speaker 1>Well maybe like when it first.
<v Speaker 2>Got when it first came out, right, it didn't really
<v Speaker 2>do that well, it's crazy. And then he puts out
<v Speaker 2>Little Red Corvette and that blows up.
<v Speaker 1>Little Red Corvette blows up, and so they re released
<v Speaker 1>nineteen ninety nine and that's when then.
<v Speaker 2>That blows up. Yeah, I remember sitting like riding my
<v Speaker 2>school bus to like the yellow bus to school.
<v Speaker 1>Huh, I'll the short one, the long one.
<v Speaker 2>Right into school, hearing the song nineteen ninety nine and
<v Speaker 2>going Wow. In the year two thousand, I'll be you know,
<v Speaker 2>twenty seven, and.
<v Speaker 1>I think I've talked about it before, but I remember
<v Speaker 1>very vividly seeing the video for Little Red Corvette. The
<v Speaker 1>first time. It was when we were driving out to
<v Speaker 1>California in nineteen eighty three. Yeah, yeah, to where I
<v Speaker 1>watched all the Booby movies. But on on the hotel
<v Speaker 1>stop along the way, the TV they had in the
<v Speaker 1>hotel had MTV turned it on. There was Prince singing
<v Speaker 1>Little Corvette and his boots off over as Dickerson's guitar.
<v Speaker 3>So up. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>So he's had some success, yeah, but he's not really
<v Speaker 2>like movie star material, right. But he comes to the
<v Speaker 2>end of this three record deal and he goes to
<v Speaker 2>Bob Cavallo and he says, I want you to get
<v Speaker 2>me into a movie.
<v Speaker 3>Right.
<v Speaker 1>Bob Cavalla is like, we've made you, like we're a
<v Speaker 1>big part of why you are successful in nineteen ninety nine,
<v Speaker 1>and now you're going to give us ultimatums like I've
<v Speaker 1>got to get you in a movie. Yeah yeah, And
<v Speaker 1>he's like, yeah, I'm not sign another deal until you
<v Speaker 1>get me a movie. He's like, I don't want to
<v Speaker 1>be one of your you know, mafia kind of deals.
<v Speaker 1>He's like mafia. Listen, man, I owned a nightclub. I
<v Speaker 1>went to Georgetown University. Okay, I'm not mafia.
<v Speaker 2>I read an article where Matt Fink, doctor Fink, the keyboardist,
<v Speaker 2>is like talking to Prince saying, are.
<v Speaker 1>You sure we're big enough to do this? They're not.
<v Speaker 1>They're not, they are not. I mean, if you look
<v Speaker 1>at me back then it doesn't make any sense other
<v Speaker 1>than Prince is Prince, and he's just determined to do it.
<v Speaker 1>And so Prince had this little notebook that he would
<v Speaker 1>write in and I've seen it in The Beautiful Ones.
<v Speaker 1>If you want to go check out that book, you
<v Speaker 1>can look at every single notebook page where Prince has
<v Speaker 1>written out the story of Purple Rain. So here's the
<v Speaker 1>first lines that he writes, this is the story of
<v Speaker 1>the dreams and aspirations of three individuals. And then he
<v Speaker 1>goes on to introduce Morse, Day, Vanity and the kid. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>you read the story, and he's got the story mapped out.
<v Speaker 1>Now it is darker. His story is darker. And one
<v Speaker 1>of the fantastic parts about the darkness of the story
<v Speaker 1>is his parents are already dead in a murder suicide, right, yes,
<v Speaker 1>and so he will have these flashbacks to the fights
<v Speaker 1>that his parents were having, and in his flashbacks he
<v Speaker 1>is the person playing the part of the father and
<v Speaker 1>the mother, like he sees himself as father and he
<v Speaker 1>sees himself as mother. And yes, go ahead.
<v Speaker 2>So maybe he's just like his father, like two bold,
<v Speaker 2>maybe he's just like his mother.
<v Speaker 1>She's never satisfied.
<v Speaker 2>Bob Cavallo says, Okay, I'll see what I can do. Right,
<v Speaker 2>So they bring in this guy named William Blynn. Yes,
<v Speaker 2>he wrote for the TV show Fame. Yes, so both
<v Speaker 2>of these movies have roots in Fame, correct, Yes, Okay,
<v Speaker 2>all right, everybody, I just want to formally invite you
<v Speaker 2>to come over and listen to our side project, the
<v Speaker 2>podcast Bull of Crypt Tonight with mister John Reid from
<v Speaker 2>the thirty seventy movie podcast, and of course you and
<v Speaker 2>me meanwhile at the Hull.
<v Speaker 1>Of Justice, we are the super Friends. That's right.
<v Speaker 2>We cover the TV show Superman and Lois. We go
<v Speaker 2>over every episode. We have a great time, and John
<v Speaker 2>knows so much about Superman.
<v Speaker 1>It's amazing. If you love Superman, or even if you don't,
<v Speaker 1>you just want to learn more, come check it out.
<v Speaker 1>And if you haven't watched Superman and Lois yet, you
<v Speaker 1>need to right now crawl out of your fortress of
<v Speaker 1>solitude and turn the TV on podcast Bull of Cryptodeck.
<v Speaker 2>So William Blynn says, okay, I'll meet with him. We'll
<v Speaker 2>talk about some stuff. So he sits down with Prince.
<v Speaker 2>Prince didn't talk very much. He's naturally very shyper, which
<v Speaker 2>is strange when you see him on.
<v Speaker 1>Stage and he's sizing you up. If I've learned anything
<v Speaker 1>on these first meetings that he has with people, he's
<v Speaker 1>sizing them off.
<v Speaker 2>Well, and he does stuff to intentionally piss.
<v Speaker 1>You off and mess with you. Yes, for sure.
<v Speaker 2>So they tease out some stuff about the murder suicide
<v Speaker 2>with his mom and dad. They just kind of get
<v Speaker 2>an outline, and so William Blinn says, Okay, I'll go
<v Speaker 2>away and I'll work on this. And he comes back.
<v Speaker 2>So he keeps calling Prince saying, hey, I've got some
<v Speaker 2>ideas we need to get together and write, and Prince
<v Speaker 2>keeps like not just putting him off, but making appointments, canceling,
<v Speaker 2>ghosting him, dodging him. So he finally gets him. He says, look,
<v Speaker 2>we got to get together, and Prince says, okay, well
<v Speaker 2>let's go see a movie.
<v Speaker 1>So he's like, fine, let's go see a movie. So
<v Speaker 1>they go see a movie. They sit down twenty minutes.
<v Speaker 2>And Prince gets up and walks out. So William Blinn
<v Speaker 2>is like, that's it. I'm out, I'm done. I'm done
<v Speaker 2>with this. Well, Prince calls him later and he's like, well,
<v Speaker 2>what's the problem, you know, and he's like, man, what
<v Speaker 2>are you talking about? I can't work this way, and
<v Speaker 2>so Prince says, look, I'm sorry, basically talk him in
<v Speaker 2>coming back, right, So William blank comes back. He works
<v Speaker 2>on the screenplay and when he turns it in.
<v Speaker 1>It's called Dreams Dreams, Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>Based on that first sentence that he wrote on right.
<v Speaker 1>So they've got the writer, but they don't have a director, right,
<v Speaker 1>And Cavallo is like, he's got at least a little
<v Speaker 1>bit of experience, and you know, he's done some movie
<v Speaker 1>work in the past, but not much, right, But he
<v Speaker 1>keeps sending it to director after director and they keep
<v Speaker 1>turning him down and he's getting frustrated, and so he
<v Speaker 1>ends up going to screen this movie of maybe a
<v Speaker 1>potential director and the movie is called Reckless. Yeah. So
<v Speaker 1>he sits down to watch this movie, Reckless.
<v Speaker 2>It has Aiden Quinn and Daryl Hannah. It's this kind
<v Speaker 2>of James Dean type of film noir movie from the
<v Speaker 2>early eighties.
<v Speaker 1>By the way, Daryl Hannah was one of the potential
<v Speaker 1>aerial possibilities. That's cool.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So he sits down to watch this movie.
<v Speaker 1>He's the only one in the theater.
<v Speaker 2>He watches Reckless just to take a break, gets up
<v Speaker 2>and as he's walking out, this young guy comes up
<v Speaker 2>to him and says, well, what do you think? And
<v Speaker 2>he's like, you know, I mean it's okay. I mean
<v Speaker 2>it was you know, it was edited. Well, I mean
<v Speaker 2>it's all right, you know, and.
<v Speaker 1>The kids like I did that.
<v Speaker 3>That was me.
<v Speaker 2>I'm the editor, right right. So the kid's name is
<v Speaker 2>Albert Magnoli.
<v Speaker 1>Right, So this guy is fresh out of UC film school. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>he had he had done well, like he had, he
<v Speaker 1>had directed a short film that actually won a student
<v Speaker 1>oscar whatever that is. But he literally is wet behind
<v Speaker 1>the ears as far as the film industry goes. This
<v Speaker 1>is his first experience in film and he was the
<v Speaker 1>editor and the movie's not that great.
<v Speaker 2>Right, right, So Cavoli's talking to him, He's like, well
<v Speaker 2>it was edited, well, it seems pretty impressive. How would
<v Speaker 2>you like to be associated with Prince's most picture project?
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and he's like, fantastic. I'm a huge fan.
<v Speaker 2>I would love to be involved the director of Reckless.
<v Speaker 2>He would love to direct and will edit and it'd
<v Speaker 2>be fantastic.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, Fully James Fully, James Fully was the director. By
<v Speaker 1>the way, side note written by Chris Columbus. Get out Nope,
<v Speaker 1>I'm serious, like it was. It came out just before Grimlins,
<v Speaker 1>so it technically was Chris Columbus's first producer wow script.
<v Speaker 1>But anyway, Yes, So James Foley, He's like, I'm excited
<v Speaker 1>to work with James Foley again. So he calls up
<v Speaker 1>James Foley to go, hey, I've got this guy who
<v Speaker 1>wants to put us on the Prince movie. And James
<v Speaker 1>Foley's like, who's Prince?
<v Speaker 2>Making a movie about a guy where directors are saying
<v Speaker 2>who's Prince?
<v Speaker 1>That tells you what's going on. I mean, James Foley'
<v Speaker 1>is an old guy, right, He's been directing a lot
<v Speaker 1>of movies that were much older than this. But he's
<v Speaker 1>like okay, let me just you know, let me get
<v Speaker 1>the script for you and you can read it. And
<v Speaker 1>so he gets the script, he sends it over to
<v Speaker 1>James Foley. James Foley calls him back the next day.
<v Speaker 1>He's like, have you read this? This is terrible. I
<v Speaker 1>am not going to make this movie. Yeah. So Albert
<v Speaker 1>Magnoli goes back and conveys this information to Bob Cavallo,
<v Speaker 1>and Bob like throws a fett. He's like, what the heck?
<v Speaker 1>You know what am I doing wrong? You know, it's
<v Speaker 1>just rejection after rejection. Yeah, I think I know what
<v Speaker 1>I'm doing. And he's like, well, you know, I can
<v Speaker 1>take a look at it, and yeah, how about me
<v Speaker 1>loongo bango?
<v Speaker 3>Yeah?
<v Speaker 1>Good for him. And so he comes back and there's
<v Speaker 1>a couple it's the story is varied here. But he's like, hey,
<v Speaker 1>you know, i'll pay you seventy five thousand dollars to
<v Speaker 1>direct this movie. And Albert Magnall's like nope. He's like,
<v Speaker 1>are you freaking kidding? Yeah, He's like, are you serious?
<v Speaker 1>Right now? He's like, okay, well, I'm not going to
<v Speaker 1>direct it the way that it's written. Here's my idea,
<v Speaker 1>and he says, what the way he puts it is,
<v Speaker 1>remember the end scene of The Godfather. Yeah, and it's
<v Speaker 1>not really the end scene. It's a mid scene, but
<v Speaker 1>the baptism scene for those Godfather fans out there, where
<v Speaker 1>you're seeing Michael Corleone getting his child baptized, and while
<v Speaker 1>all that's happening, hits are happening from person to person,
<v Speaker 1>and he says, it's going to be that kind of
<v Speaker 1>same like musical underlying thing, which, by the way, that
<v Speaker 1>was what tied that scene together. Like Francis Fort was
<v Speaker 1>about to kick that scene, but the music. I was like,
<v Speaker 1>why don't you put in like organ music over the
<v Speaker 1>top of all of this, And that's what made this
<v Speaker 1>scene such an impactful scene. And so he says, what
<v Speaker 1>we're going to do for the intro to Purple Rain
<v Speaker 1>is that same idea. We're starting with the song, and
<v Speaker 1>the song is going on while we're introducing all of
<v Speaker 1>our characters. In these shot by shot presentations, we see
<v Speaker 1>Morris Day pimping up and getting ready to come out
<v Speaker 1>of his house. We see Prince on stage lighting up
<v Speaker 1>the crowd, and we see Appollonia coming out of the
<v Speaker 1>taxi fresh into the city and sneaking carefully into the nightclub.
<v Speaker 2>She bails on the cab driver and races off to
<v Speaker 2>go try to get in the first albute.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and he won't let her. He's like, She's like,
<v Speaker 1>I have a meeting with the manager, and he's like,
<v Speaker 1>the manager doesn't have meetings. You're full. Yeah, and she's
<v Speaker 1>like oh, and he gets distracted and she runs a
<v Speaker 1>store bolts in and it's great. It's a great. That
<v Speaker 1>opening scene is fantastic. I mean, you're right. You get
<v Speaker 1>introduced to all.
<v Speaker 2>Three characters, you know who they are, you know what
<v Speaker 2>they're doing, and the song is phenomenal.
<v Speaker 1>Absolutely, but we can't get into it yet. Let's not
<v Speaker 1>talk about that. Before all of this happens. Obviously, while
<v Speaker 1>they're still preparing, they bring Albert Magnoli over to talk
<v Speaker 1>to Prince for the first time. And as far as
<v Speaker 1>Prince knows, like the idea is, this is a new
<v Speaker 1>director and so he's not going to be in any trouble
<v Speaker 1>and he's going to shoot the script the way that
<v Speaker 1>the script is written. And so when they sit down
<v Speaker 1>to dinner for the very first time, Prince is like,
<v Speaker 1>so what do you think about the script? And Albert
<v Speaker 1>Magnoli's like, I hate it. I don't want to shoot
<v Speaker 1>that movie. I would like to shoot a different movie.
<v Speaker 1>And he's a very excited, like animated guy, and he
<v Speaker 1>launches into what his story idea is for the movie
<v Speaker 1>and goes through all of it, and Prince is like,
<v Speaker 1>everybody leave and it's like, oh crap, and so like
<v Speaker 1>everybody leaves and he's like, you come with me, and
<v Speaker 1>they get in the car and Prince is driving silently
<v Speaker 1>with Magnoli in the car and he's just like, what's
<v Speaker 1>going on here? And then they take this exit like
<v Speaker 1>into this pitch black you know, middle of the downtown.
<v Speaker 1>You know, who knows what's going on? Prince Park's the
<v Speaker 1>car and he's like what do you know about me?
<v Speaker 1>And he's like what. He goes, what have you learned
<v Speaker 1>about me? And he's like, I don't know what you're
<v Speaker 1>talking about. He goes, listen, you just told my life
<v Speaker 1>story in ten minutes, and I want to know how
<v Speaker 1>you know it. And Alvin Mangler was like, it's just
<v Speaker 1>the story that I had. And that is how he
<v Speaker 1>became the for sure director of this movie.
<v Speaker 2>I thought you were getting ready to tell me that
<v Speaker 2>he made him purify himself and the honors of lake manattaka.
<v Speaker 2>Probably that's a fantastic story. So I've got this funny
<v Speaker 2>little nugget. This is so cringe worthy I can barely
<v Speaker 2>get it out of my mouth. Okay, So when the
<v Speaker 2>executives are getting together to discuss the production of Purple Rain,
<v Speaker 2>there's this guy named Mark Kenton, who is a Warner
<v Speaker 2>Brothers executive VP at the time, and he's sitting in
<v Speaker 2>this meeting and he makes the comment that, you know,
<v Speaker 2>I kind of can get behind this movie Purple Rain.
<v Speaker 2>I don't think Prince is big enough. How about on Travolta.
<v Speaker 1>I'm like, what, Yeah, they bail. They're like, this is
<v Speaker 1>exactly why we didn't want to do this in Hollywood.
<v Speaker 1>Knew this crap would happen. And he they bail, and
<v Speaker 1>they call him back and be like, we're sorry, come back,
<v Speaker 1>will will be good, we promise, and so but it was.
<v Speaker 1>It's something. It's interesting that at that point, despite the
<v Speaker 1>fact that they had all kinds of odds against them,
<v Speaker 1>I mean, not that famous yet, shooting in Minneapolis of
<v Speaker 1>all places, no veteran actors in the winter, Yeah, no
<v Speaker 1>veteran actors in the movie and a pretty thin script
<v Speaker 1>and a brand new director. This movie should not have
<v Speaker 1>seen the light.
<v Speaker 2>Of day, and if it did see the light of day.
<v Speaker 1>It should not have been a success. But it was.
<v Speaker 2>Well, it's because we all didn't realize who Prince was
<v Speaker 2>until yeah, ple rainy. Okay, So at this point, let's
<v Speaker 2>flip back to Footloose and talk about casting.
<v Speaker 1>That's great, Okay. Before we do that, though, I.
<v Speaker 2>Wanted to make mention Footloose was originally called cheek to cheek.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, that sounds like an old forties like Fred Astaire
<v Speaker 1>gender roches cheek.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, kick off your Sunday shoes. No, I don't think
<v Speaker 2>so either, But I mean really that was just kind
<v Speaker 2>of a working title until they came up with footloose
<v Speaker 2>and fancy free, right, and then they just you know,
<v Speaker 2>shortened it down to footloose and it's perfect.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's perfect. Yeah. So casting, okay, So they almost.
<v Speaker 2>Got Tom Cruise as Ray McCormick.
<v Speaker 1>And if you're forgetting that scene from Risky Business that
<v Speaker 1>we all watched in nineteen eighty three where he dances
<v Speaker 1>in his underwear, he might have been a phenomenal rent.
<v Speaker 1>I think he could have been great.
<v Speaker 2>I mean, Tom Cruise, one of the biggest movie stars
<v Speaker 2>of all died.
<v Speaker 1>But he's almost too pretty for the partner, right, and
<v Speaker 1>you know who else was also pretty almost the guy too,
<v Speaker 1>Rob Low, Rob Low. Rob Low pulled something like injured
<v Speaker 1>himself and couldn't do the dances in his ACL.
<v Speaker 2>So listen to this, So they bring in Tom Cruise.
<v Speaker 2>He convinces them I can do this dancing, which I'm
<v Speaker 2>not sure that Tom Cruise could do the dancing, but
<v Speaker 2>you know, good enough, I guess.
<v Speaker 1>So Tom Cruise was shooting all the right moves.
<v Speaker 2>He had bulked up to play a football player, and
<v Speaker 2>there was some you know, additional scenes that they had
<v Speaker 2>to shoot and stuff like that and would have delayed
<v Speaker 2>production on Footloose. They only had a small window of time,
<v Speaker 2>so even though they wanted Tom Cruise, they couldn't really
<v Speaker 2>take the chance on the movie not getting made at all.
<v Speaker 2>So they bring in Rob Low and he shows off
<v Speaker 2>and looks good, of course and hugely charismatic actor of
<v Speaker 2>our time. And he hurts his ACL injures it where.
<v Speaker 1>He can't dance, can't do it.
<v Speaker 2>So they carry him off and they're like, he's out right,
<v Speaker 2>So they start looking around. Christopher Adkins, the guy from
<v Speaker 2>the Blue Lagoon, almost got the part, and some say
<v Speaker 2>he did get the part, but he showed up high
<v Speaker 2>on the set one day and so they said, I
<v Speaker 2>don't think that's a good idea. So they're bouncing around
<v Speaker 2>on who to play Red. They go to a screening
<v Speaker 2>the movie Diner right, which stars Kevin Bacon.
<v Speaker 1>Now, Kevin Bacon we've talked about before because like one
<v Speaker 1>of the first things we wanted to do was do
<v Speaker 1>the you know, six degrees of Kevin Bacon, because he's
<v Speaker 1>become that guy. But back in nineteen eighty three, when
<v Speaker 1>they're putting this movie together, he really hadn't been in much.
<v Speaker 1>He was in National Lampoon's Animal House, but that was
<v Speaker 1>seventy eight, yeah, and so he hadn't done a whole
<v Speaker 1>lot since then. In eighty he was in Friday the Thirteenth.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he gets a spear through the throat, right right.
<v Speaker 1>He was doing some stage work, and in eighty two
<v Speaker 1>he ended up winning an Obie Award for forty deuce
<v Speaker 1>and was in a Broadway play called Slab Boys with
<v Speaker 1>a couple of guys who were unknown at that time
<v Speaker 1>as well named Sean Penn and Val Kilmer. Wow, right,
<v Speaker 1>that's pretty cool. And so he ends up from that
<v Speaker 1>getting this part in Barry Livinson's Diner, and he's acting
<v Speaker 1>with Steve Gutenberg, Daniel Stern, Mickey Rourke, Tim Day, and
<v Speaker 1>Ellen Barkin. So they go see the movie and they
<v Speaker 1>like you. Yeah.
<v Speaker 2>They think he's got the right charisma, the good sort
<v Speaker 2>of all Americans, sort of neutral, look what they're looking for, right,
<v Speaker 2>And they're like, well, great, let's find out if he
<v Speaker 2>can dance.
<v Speaker 1>So they call his agent and they say can he dance?
<v Speaker 1>She says no. She says no, what kind of agent
<v Speaker 1>are you? You're supposed to get me jobs? The answer
<v Speaker 1>is yes, whatever it is, it's yes.
<v Speaker 2>So she says no and they say, well not even
<v Speaker 2>a little, Like can we teach him? And they're like, no,
<v Speaker 2>he can't dance at all. So they're like, man, back to.
<v Speaker 1>The drawing board.
<v Speaker 2>So they're they're fretting and thinking and looking around. I
<v Speaker 2>can't find w Rent. And Dean Pittford has a conversation
<v Speaker 2>with somebody who's like, I just can't find Rent. And
<v Speaker 2>the person says, independently without this knowledge, says, well, have
<v Speaker 2>you thought about Kevin Macon and he says, well, yeah,
<v Speaker 2>well we thought about it, but he can't dance. He's like,
<v Speaker 2>what do you talking about? I was at a party
<v Speaker 2>last night. He's dancing his re rock the whole time, and.
<v Speaker 1>He's like, what are you kidding me?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, So they go and they rekindle those convers stations
<v Speaker 2>with Kevin Bacon.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>And the only problem is, at this point, Kevin Bacon
<v Speaker 1>gets cast as the lead role in Christine the Stephen
<v Speaker 1>King Car Movie, Car Movie. Yes, And so he gets
<v Speaker 1>this lead role and then they offer him a screen
<v Speaker 1>test for Footloose. So the producers have to convince him
<v Speaker 1>it's smarter to turn down this sure thing lead role
<v Speaker 1>just to be in an audition for our maybe movie
<v Speaker 1>that's remarkable. Yeah, And so he does it and thirty
<v Speaker 1>seconds into the audition they said, you're our guy. And
<v Speaker 1>the only problem is one of the studio producers for Paramount,
<v Speaker 1>Sherry Lansing, who is an She's an icon as far
<v Speaker 1>as producers go, like first woman to do one hundred
<v Speaker 1>thousand things in Hollywood. But she's like, he's not sexy.
<v Speaker 1>I'm not putting him in this movie. And they're like,
<v Speaker 1>what we just convinced him to drop a sure thing
<v Speaker 1>role he's our guy, and she's like, nope, not doing it.
<v Speaker 1>Not sexy. So herb ross for like weeks has to
<v Speaker 1>convince her that he's sexy, and so he does screen
<v Speaker 1>test after screen test, screen test, and finally she's like, okay, fine.
<v Speaker 2>So the screen test, okay, yeah, let's talk about that
<v Speaker 2>for a second.
<v Speaker 1>I thought this was remarkable.
<v Speaker 2>So they go and they get him some high fashion
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty four clothing, they dress him up, they gave.
<v Speaker 1>Him a fifteen hundred dollars haircut.
<v Speaker 2>Kevin Bacan's like, what, well, what fifteen hundred bucks in
<v Speaker 2>nineteen eighty three, they get the guy that's like haircut
<v Speaker 2>Guy of the Stars, right, and they want to make
<v Speaker 2>him look like Sting.
<v Speaker 1>Sting. Yeah, flashback to our Synchronicity episode.
<v Speaker 2>And they set the screen test to beat it by
<v Speaker 2>Michael Jackson. So he's dancing around with the sting haircut
<v Speaker 2>with his high fashion clothes, and that's when they're like, okay,
<v Speaker 2>yeah he's it was he wearing skinny tie.
<v Speaker 1>Probably, And here's the deal.
<v Speaker 2>They had already agreed that if they don't cast Kevin Bacon,
<v Speaker 2>we are not making this movie.
<v Speaker 1>Oh wow, it was a do or die. That's awesome.
<v Speaker 1>Everything was on the line all in. So we've got
<v Speaker 1>our male lead. Now we need our Angenoux, right, we
<v Speaker 1>need our young Ariel.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, so Lurie Singer is the person that ended up
<v Speaker 2>getting the role. Madonna auditioned for this. Daryl Hannah was
<v Speaker 2>she in that Mermaid movie that you're talking about earlier? Yes,
<v Speaker 2>it was not that Mermaid. She's in a different Mermaid
<v Speaker 2>movie called Splash. Daryl Hannah almost got the part. Jennifer
<v Speaker 2>Jason Lee almost got this part. Havelan Morris, if you've
<v Speaker 2>ever seen sixteen Candles, Elizabeth McGovern, Melanie Griffith was interested,
<v Speaker 2>Michelle Pfeiffer was interested. Nice Jamie Lee, Curtis, Meg Tilley,
<v Speaker 2>Heather locklear Brookshields, Diane Lane, Lori Laughlin, Phoebe Kates all considered.
<v Speaker 1>So Lurie Singer her dad was a conductor and she
<v Speaker 1>was a musical prodigy. She debuted as a cellist with
<v Speaker 1>the Oregon Symphony when she was thirteen years old, and
<v Speaker 1>then got accepted to Juilliard, where she became, like her
<v Speaker 1>the youngest graduate from Juilliard. And then she decides, hey,
<v Speaker 1>I'm going to do some modeling, and the modeling turns
<v Speaker 1>into getting cast in this tea TV series that we
<v Speaker 1>just mentioned a couple times called Fame. It all goes
<v Speaker 1>back to Fame. She plays the part of Julie Miller,
<v Speaker 1>who is a teenage dancer and cellist from nineteen eighty
<v Speaker 1>two to nineteen eighty three, and that is what gets
<v Speaker 1>her in front of them to be our aerial fantastic.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, you mentioned Sean Penn earlier. Yep, the part of
<v Speaker 2>Willard goes to Chris Penn, Shawn Friend's brother.
<v Speaker 1>Yep.
<v Speaker 2>The funny thing about this he cannot dance, not.
<v Speaker 1>At all, not a lick, not a bit like Kevin
<v Speaker 1>Bacon was said not to dance. He really can't dance
<v Speaker 1>like Kevin Bacon said that. He showed up to the
<v Speaker 1>dancing class with a cigarette in one hand and a
<v Speaker 1>Pepsi in the other, was trying to do the dances,
<v Speaker 1>and they're like, could you put that out? She was seventeen, Wow, seventeen, which,
<v Speaker 1>by the way, I think Kevin Bacon was twenty four
<v Speaker 1>when he did this. Right, in seventy eight, he's playing
<v Speaker 1>a college kid, and in eighty before he's playing a
<v Speaker 1>high school. The fact that he couldn't dance was made
<v Speaker 1>a part of the movie. That's great, and it's possibly
<v Speaker 1>the best part of the movie. I mean, it's it's
<v Speaker 1>iconic that time that they're training him, the montage scene
<v Speaker 1>where they're teaching him how to dance. I mean, that's huge.
<v Speaker 1>That's a huge part of the whole storyline.
<v Speaker 2>And I think it's huge because for guys like me
<v Speaker 2>who can't dance, Yeah, there's somebody in the movie that
<v Speaker 2>I can relate to and be a part of and
<v Speaker 2>take the ride with.
<v Speaker 1>Yep. Okay, so we've got our male lead, we've got
<v Speaker 1>our female lead, we've got our best friend, and now
<v Speaker 1>we need our quotation Mark's villain. And so for that
<v Speaker 1>part we have John Lithgow. Here's what I know about
<v Speaker 1>that part. Okay.
<v Speaker 2>So Dean Pitchford went and saw this play on Broadway
<v Speaker 2>called Beyond Therapy, Okay, and that starred John Lithgow and
<v Speaker 2>Diane Weist, and Dean Pitchford loved their chemistry on stage together,
<v Speaker 2>and he's like, I got a perfect thing. We'll get
<v Speaker 2>both of those as the preacher and his wife.
<v Speaker 1>Brilliant. And I didn't realize what a stud John lithgow
<v Speaker 1>Is I mean beyond the fact that you know Harry
<v Speaker 1>and the Henderson's and Third Rock from the Sun and yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I mean all of those movies obviously. But he graduated
<v Speaker 1>from Harvard with an ab Macna Coomb Laudie what He
<v Speaker 1>got a full right scholarship, and he had a chance
<v Speaker 1>to go to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.
<v Speaker 1>From there he went to train in New York stage,
<v Speaker 1>beginning a distinguished career on Broadway. In seventy three he
<v Speaker 1>got his first Tony Award, and then in seventy nine
<v Speaker 1>he was cast in one of his earliest screen roles,
<v Speaker 1>All That Jazz by our friend Bob Fosse. Real quick
<v Speaker 1>on Diane Weist.
<v Speaker 2>Yes, she does a wonderful job of being strong but
<v Speaker 2>sort of in the background, supporting her husband, supporting her
<v Speaker 2>daughter and doing what's right. Diane Weist flashback to Our
<v Speaker 2>Lost Boys episode. Ye, he's almost unrecognizable Preacher's wife. Okay,
<v Speaker 2>one more quick one, I want to talk about real
<v Speaker 2>quick before we move on. Sarah Jessica Parker plays the
<v Speaker 2>part of Rusty.
<v Speaker 1>You met a woman named Rusty?
<v Speaker 2>No, I haven't either, okay, but that part originally went
<v Speaker 2>to Tracy Nelson, who was her co star on the
<v Speaker 2>show Square Pegs.
<v Speaker 1>Oh yeah, okay.
<v Speaker 2>Apparently Tracy Nelson had some sort of family difficulties back home,
<v Speaker 2>and when they got on set, they realized pretty quickly
<v Speaker 2>she needs to be back home. They called Sarah Jessica
<v Speaker 2>Parker and she said, great, all right, let's flip back
<v Speaker 2>to Purple Rain and talk about casting for Purple Rain.
<v Speaker 1>Right, So, the part of the kid was to be
<v Speaker 1>played by Prince now John Travolta, not John Travolta, you guys,
<v Speaker 1>I'm going home. So and the part of Morris Day
<v Speaker 1>they found a guy with the exact same name who
<v Speaker 1>happened to know Prince, So that was lucky.
<v Speaker 2>Yep.
<v Speaker 1>Yes, And then the part of Apollonia was supposed to
<v Speaker 1>be played by Vanity. Vanity was Princess's girlfriend at the time. Yep.
<v Speaker 2>She had been involved in his rock group called Vanity six,
<v Speaker 2>who had a couple of hits, and.
<v Speaker 1>We talked about her in a little bit of detail
<v Speaker 1>on our Motley Cruz did do a good episode right
<v Speaker 1>there's she plays a prominent part in Nicky Six's heroin Diaries.
<v Speaker 1>By the way didn't occur to me the whole time
<v Speaker 1>that I read that book. They were engaged. Had she
<v Speaker 1>married Nicky six, she would have become Vanity six. That
<v Speaker 1>would have been pretty cool. That had been a little weird.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So, like you said, the miraculous journey that Purple
<v Speaker 2>Rain makes from paper to screen, it's really amazing because
<v Speaker 2>you finally convinced a writer to come up for Yep,
<v Speaker 2>you finally convinced somebody to produce this thing. Prince is like,
<v Speaker 2>I want to be a movie star, and they're like okay.
<v Speaker 2>And then as soon as you get like the plane
<v Speaker 2>is coming off the ground and.
<v Speaker 1>We're actually going to do this, the leading lady quins, Yeah.
<v Speaker 1>She and Prince were obviously having a fallen out, which
<v Speaker 1>was a part of it. But she had had acting experience, right,
<v Speaker 1>she had been in a few movies. This is kind
<v Speaker 1>of this weird situation where this kind of bit part
<v Speaker 1>player is the one with the most experience of that
<v Speaker 1>they got that they've got there, and so she was like,
<v Speaker 1>I need more money than you guys are offering me,
<v Speaker 1>and I're like, you're not that good, right, And there's
<v Speaker 1>talk that she was supposed to play Mary Magdalen in
<v Speaker 1>the Last Temptation of Christ, which I mean, yes, if
<v Speaker 1>you're going to go work with Martin Scorsese as opposed
<v Speaker 1>to the first time director out of us college. Yeah, yes,
<v Speaker 1>you would go do that. But I think it was
<v Speaker 1>just kind of talks and then that didn't happen. So yeah,
<v Speaker 1>so she missed out. Yes, and let's not forget she
<v Speaker 1>was also drug out a little crazy.
<v Speaker 2>Here's her quote regarding Prince in Purple Rain. Yeah, I
<v Speaker 2>needed one person to love me, and he needed more.
<v Speaker 2>So now they're on the look for who's going to
<v Speaker 2>play the leading lady, right, So they audition up to
<v Speaker 2>five hundred actresses. But this includes people like Jennifer bils
<v Speaker 2>From who had done the movie Flash Dance, right, Na,
<v Speaker 2>people's Gina Gersham.
<v Speaker 1>All of these people look very similar, dark hair, dark eyes, well,
<v Speaker 1>Gina Gershon. Gina Gershon wasn't anything at that point either. No,
<v Speaker 1>she's mega hutt. Yeah she still couldn't say Showgirls though, No,
<v Speaker 1>she couldn't. No, no she could.
<v Speaker 2>So they auditioned this girl named Patricia Kotero, who had
<v Speaker 2>been a La Rams cheerleader.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I'd been in a couple of movies and again.
<v Speaker 1>Bit Parts was married at the time, but was also
<v Speaker 1>having a pretty interesting romance with our friend David Lee
<v Speaker 1>Roth flashback to our Van Halen episodes. Yeah, and so
<v Speaker 1>she was bound and determined to become a movie star.
<v Speaker 1>But for this part, unlike everyone else who showed up
<v Speaker 1>in you know, eighteen inch heels and skin tight leather,
<v Speaker 1>she showed up in jogging pants and no, maga, I
<v Speaker 1>don't really understand that. But okay, yeah, but they're like, Okay,
<v Speaker 1>this girl is different and looks good, and so let's
<v Speaker 1>have her meet Prince. Her parents are both immigrants from Mexico,
<v Speaker 1>so she's fluent in Spanish.
<v Speaker 2>So after her audition, Prince likes her and they fly
<v Speaker 2>her out to Minneapolis. Well, his bodyguard's name is Chick.
<v Speaker 1>He's a big guy. He's actually in purple rain. You
<v Speaker 1>can see him a couple of times.
<v Speaker 2>And he goes to her and he says he likes your,
<v Speaker 2>like he really likes you, and she's like, wow, you
<v Speaker 2>really think, I mean, is this gonna happen?
<v Speaker 1>And he's like, well, he wants to take you out.
<v Speaker 2>So they go out and go dinner and dancing, and
<v Speaker 2>so they go to First Avenue.
<v Speaker 1>Uh, huh. And when they get there, I guess who's there? Vanity?
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, She's like, oh crap, Vanity's here.
<v Speaker 1>What's gonna happen? Is she gonna freak out go crazy?
<v Speaker 1>And no, just stood there glaring from the side.
<v Speaker 2>So Prince was wanting to see how she was going
<v Speaker 2>to react, probably messing with Vanity as well. After that
<v Speaker 2>night out, He's like, this is my girl.
<v Speaker 1>I can work with this girl. Sidebar, sidebar. So she
<v Speaker 1>ends up seeking out Vanity to make friends with her, right,
<v Speaker 1>and they become friends and at some point they get
<v Speaker 1>together for lun and Vanity is like, so, you know,
<v Speaker 1>are you doing any more movies? What have you got
<v Speaker 1>going on? And she's and Apollonia is like, oh yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I got the female part in this movie called The
<v Speaker 1>Last Dragon. And Vanity's like, it's up. What walks over
<v Speaker 1>to the phone and she's like she could hear her
<v Speaker 1>screaming at somebody on the phone, comes back, sits down
<v Speaker 1>and as it turns out, she didn't have that part
<v Speaker 1>because Vanny got it. Yeah. By the way, we should
<v Speaker 1>back up. Her name is Patricia.
<v Speaker 2>She went by Patty Yeah, Patti Cato, not quite as
<v Speaker 2>strong a stage name as Apollonia.
<v Speaker 1>Right, Apollonia again comes from Godfather. Godfather. Yeah, the pretty
<v Speaker 1>Italian bride that Michael Corleone had unfortunately gets blown up.
<v Speaker 2>So he goes to Patty Yeah, and he's like, I
<v Speaker 2>see you more as a one name type of girl.
<v Speaker 2>So last name gone.
<v Speaker 1>We're just gonna call you Apollonia. She's like, whatever you
<v Speaker 1>say sounds good, sounds good. Let's do this. So Appollonia's
<v Speaker 1>six initially had this song that you might have heard
<v Speaker 1>of called Manic Munda.
<v Speaker 3>Was just sing.
<v Speaker 1>You know, I listened to it on the way here today.
<v Speaker 1>Yes to that version.
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it's a demo, so it's not polished like it
<v Speaker 2>should be. But the Bengals is way better, especially the
<v Speaker 2>bridge in the middle.
<v Speaker 1>Well, she just did an interview last month and for
<v Speaker 1>the first time she came out and said, I helped
<v Speaker 1>Prince write the song Manic Monday. She's gotten no writing credits, like,
<v Speaker 1>I never asked for it and never wanted it. He
<v Speaker 1>was going to do things, he was going to fix things.
<v Speaker 1>Just before he died. Who knows I've gotten you know,
<v Speaker 1>It's it's suspicious to say the least, but it's interesting
<v Speaker 1>that in their interactions together she comes up with this
<v Speaker 1>and that Appolonia six records a version of it. But
<v Speaker 1>she also said she's the one that turned Prince onto
<v Speaker 1>Susanna Hoffs for the first time. Yeah, like she was
<v Speaker 1>a Suzannah Hoffs fan, enjoyed her music. And of course
<v Speaker 1>when he sees Suzannah Hoffs like in the video, she's
<v Speaker 1>wearing like this made uniform or whatever, and he's like, oh, yeah,
<v Speaker 1>I can work. So that was that was how he
<v Speaker 1>took that song and gave it to the Bangles. Oh yeah,
<v Speaker 1>there are a couple more casting things that we need
<v Speaker 1>to talk about. So the only actors that had acting
<v Speaker 1>experience in this movie Apollonia, Yes, and the mom and
<v Speaker 1>the Dad. Go ahead.
<v Speaker 2>I was just going to say Apolloni was in a
<v Speaker 2>TV show that I used to love as a kid
<v Speaker 2>that I barely remember. But it's based on Raiders of
<v Speaker 2>the Lost Ark. It's called Tales of a Gold Monkey.
<v Speaker 1>Do you remember that show? No, So mom is played
<v Speaker 1>by Olga Carlatos who really hasn't been in much else
<v Speaker 1>but the dad. The dad is Clarence Williams, the Third
<v Speaker 1>who just last week passed away tragic, but he was
<v Speaker 1>link on the mod Squad. He was the cool guy
<v Speaker 1>on the mod squad, Lincoln whatever his last name was Link. Yeah,
<v Speaker 1>he was just this just cool dude. And I gotta
<v Speaker 1>say his performance in this movie is Oscar worthy in
<v Speaker 1>my opinion. It's really he does such a good job
<v Speaker 1>with this movie.
<v Speaker 2>He adds the depth and the emotion and the anger
<v Speaker 2>and the rage that this really the crux of the
<v Speaker 2>story depends on. Yeah, and the scene where he's slapping
<v Speaker 2>the mom around, which as a kid, of course, I
<v Speaker 2>saw it a thousand times because I watched the Wind
<v Speaker 2>Doves Cry video a billion times. Right, he's like slapping
<v Speaker 2>her around. Prince comes in and he shoves him to
<v Speaker 2>the floor. At the time, I remember thinking, man, he's
<v Speaker 2>really beating her up.
<v Speaker 3>You know.
<v Speaker 2>It's just very intense acting.
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Yeah, you can't actually beat the actors up. They
<v Speaker 1>don't like that.
<v Speaker 2>Okay, So that's it for this week's episode, Purple Rain
<v Speaker 2>versus Footloose.
<v Speaker 1>Come back next week. Yeah, be sure, right now, right now,
<v Speaker 1>you get your phone right in front of you. You
<v Speaker 1>lasted this long. If you haven't hit the little follow
<v Speaker 1>or subscribe button on your podcast app, do that now
<v Speaker 1>so that it will automatically pop up as a little
<v Speaker 1>reminder to you come join us because we love having it.
<v Speaker 1>That's right.
<v Speaker 2>We only have three weeks left on our summer of
<v Speaker 2>eighty four after this week.
<v Speaker 1>Next week we're going to finish.
<v Speaker 2>Up the movie comparison, and then we're going to go
<v Speaker 2>track by track through both of these albums.
<v Speaker 1>It's gonna be fantastic.
<v Speaker 3>Yeah's the mojogl Jana
<v Speaker 1>Jungle