An American Werewolf in London (1981) vs. The Howling (1981): Part 1

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