Under the CineMat Ep. 105: 2023 Christmas Special Part 1

The Lapsed Fan presents Under the Cinemat. Yeah, I love to talk film.
I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick at a break go.
You're going nowhere under the cinemat. Get it out, Get it out?
I pick up guns. Bad things happen to people. I don't like
that. We have a movie to make. Can we all pull together here
to make movies? It's Christmas again. It's a time of reflection. It's
a time to look around and take stock of the blessings in your life.
It's a time to celebrate what we have instead of dwelling on what we don't.
I think as we head into TLFX, we can take this to recognize
that it is a wonderful life. You didn't do it under the Cinemat.
You didn't do it. Oh my god, I'm so fine excited. Oh
how what's the connection? You're gonna have to wait for that. How did
you do it? You're gonna have to wait for that. And it's and
you know what, it's it's it's uh, it's it's definitely one. You
gotta find it. It's it's there and it's here and it's real, all
right, It's not it's not a fabrication, it's not a stretch. It
is complete legit, square peg, square hole. Okay, totally wonderful life.
It is a wonderful life. Now, I believe you just said,
uh uh Forced five podcast, this is your favorite film or what the best
film in your mind of all time? I think I think it's the best
movie I've ever seen. Amazing. Not my favorite movie, but I think
it's the stand close. Sure. Sure, I love this movie. I
absolutely love it. That's all I mean, because I you know, I
turned to cinema for commentary on where we were sure and how that shouldn't form
how we think about where we are yep. And this movie is on par
with no other I've ever seen in terms of its timeless nature. On that
front, it absolutely is. I mean, it's definitely a movie that that
gets better with age. To movies for that kind of messaging. If you
look to movies for that kind of clarity, then this, this, this
is up there. If you look to movies for you know, for the
technique, for the entertainment value, for you know, to to you know,
to marvel at the repartee, which this has plenty of. Make no
mistake, but I just think more than anything more can be said about the
message of this movie than the message of any other film ever made. For
sure, for sure it is it is interesting and we'll and we'll definitely get
there along the way. There are some there are some interesting things that I've
that I've discovered that I it's it's interesting that the same message you're talking about
can also be taken in a negative way. That's what I'm saying. And
and it's very it's very fascinating, and I'm I'm I'm so excited. I
mean, I've been we have never done a movie under the cinemat that's like
this because I've actually read a ton of books and listened. I've read books,
I've done actual research on this movie. I've oh amazing, Okay,
I've heard a bunch of Frank Kaepra interviews about it. Chris is like the
only movie you could pick where I've done sorrow style work. Great. I
love it. That's good because you know what, because because it's been it's
it's it's been the challenge of this movie that there is so much, that
much and you got to be kidding me, and uh uh, it's just
like it's even more than I anticipated there to be a lot, don't get
me. When we were on the aforementioned four five and we were talking about
how this movie innovated a new way of depicting snowfall, you kind of were
you playing dumb there? Did you not know that part of it at that
point? Had you not come up? I actually had not. I had
not come upon that point just yet. That doesn't give you a lot of
credit for the kve now, No, but I was. I was.
It was very hard for me not to just fucking dump it all out there
when I picked that as my number one Christmas movie pick. You knew you
were going to do this right? Oh yeah? And I what was I've
went through your mind? I've known, I've known for almost a year.
That's long term booking pal mm hmm. And when I picked this as my
top movie, that must have given me a tickle it fucking again. It
took me. It took every ounce. And I am not joking to not
say coming soon under the cinematic that is like, that is like custom made
for you. It's almost like an automatic, like a Havelovian response. Almost
it totally is. I was. I was hurting not to say, I
was like, should maybe I should just say no, no, no,
no, because you know, you know the reaction it would have got me
screaming like that, not at all. I saw some lights go on in
the neighbor's house. You might have also, you know, it would have
totally fucking taken a different turn on on on Force five two. So we
would have definitely probably taken over that whole that whole show for like twenty to
thirty minutes, not that we didn't anyway, but that right, So so
all right, so then I'll ask you this, So we'll start off with
you, what do you know about Philip van doren Stern. Well, I
know that he was an advertising man, and he was a New York Denizen,
and then he authored and and he was a novelist. I think find
define New York denizen. He was. He was of depression are in New
York. He was a guy who lived and operated in New York. Am
I wrong about that? Well? No, no, he did he especially
spend a buddy, but he yes, he definitely spent his uh Depression era
time. But he was in the New York of Miracle on thirty fourth born
yeah, yeah, born born in Pennsylvania, but raised in New Jersey,
which actually the place the land comes from there in Pennsylvania. So yeah,
and then he he sat down to write a Christmas card for a small list
of friends and family that would feature a Christmas story called The Greatest Gift,
and he essentially introduced you know what he intended to be a relatively small circle
of friends and family, uh, to George Bailey and told essentially no,
not George Bailey, although not George Bailey, right, he George Pratt.
George Pratt, right. And he basically created the skeleton of what this movie
is. I mean, certainly full acknowledgment from Frank Capra. You see call
out to the book and the credits of the film. It's not like they're
ran away from the inspiration for this, but it is. It is different
on a lot of the storyline beats, but the general notion of a guy
who gets so the last twenty minutes basically the last is the same as the
card more or less. And it's it's a Christmas card. I mean,
it's not like a novel, not not not exactly. Oh, it's he
meant for it to be a novel. But we'll get into that So the
greatest gift is life. There we go, is it? Though? You
know George Pratt considered suicide just as George Bailey does, and is is rescued
from that that brink by a guardian angel and and Capra had all he needed
as the springboard. That's right, That's right. So uh, Van so
Stern, I'm just gonna call him Stern. I'm not going to call him
Van Dorn Stern. That's just ridiculous. Not Howard Stern, but Phillipstern.
He Rutgers grad and like you said, start out in advertising. Did also
was a publishing editor before he came an author. But also his prime his
prime thing, a lot of his books were about the Civil War. He
was a Civil War historian. That's what was kind of a thing. Yeah,
a number of books on the Civil War. Specifically one that I just
you know, as I was looking him up, just mainly because I thought
the review was fascinating, but he wrote one about the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
And again I found this the review to be just wild. From the
San Patriot News Pilot dated February first, nineteen thirty nine. That's the shit
we're looking for. Yeah. There are so many stories of John Wilkes Booth,
and they vary so that it is a pleasure, indeed, to meet
a man like Philip van Doren Stern who seems to know his way about so
well he can supply anything missing. He has not only reconstructed the story of
Booth in the assassination of Lincoln, he has gold florified it. His idea
was not to write a history of the events or to produce a biography of
Booth. It was simply to write the story of the assassination, beginning Tuesday,
April eleventh, eighteen sixty five, and continuing through the actual murder on
the succeeding Friday, to the death of Booth at two thirty in the morning
of April twenty sixth. Apparently Stern could not find this, for he spends
one hundred and thirty four pages of his three hundred and seventy five of his
three hundred and seventy five walking Booth about the dirty streets of Civil War Washington
for four days before anything at all happens, except some conversations and an encounter
or to which Stem admits he imagined Stern I was gonna say, I if
I'm not mistaken, this is more historical fiction that he wrote. It's more
like it's not like an attempt to actually recount, although it does try to
do that. Everything is actually happen. There's a fair degree of poetic license.
He just had a complete you know, he uses an expert in civil
war stuff. Yeah, it doesn't say that it's a nonfiction book at all.
But this whole, this gives the whole undertaking and undeserved air of spaciousness.
Stern really knows what he is supposed to know. It is only that
it doesn't. It is only that it isn't dramatic material. Finally, after
a good deal of gentle yawning behind the hand, the reader arrives at the
Ford Theater with the murderer. He then is taken in and out of place,
out of the don't taken in and out of the place, forced to
read a number of utterly useless strangers, and finally allowed to peek while the
gun goes bang, booth jumps, breaks his leg, eludes, everyone disappears.
Then, rather unexpectedly, the story picks up speed. The last half
of the book is exceedingly pleasant. How was that strange? That review stranger
than the book. It's so strange to me. It kind of reminds me,
did you have read the book Manhunt. No, it's a great book.
I think they're supposed to do a movie about it. But it's about
ye. John Cenos on the show, it was about to speaking of creative
nonfiction, right exactly, he was. It was about the murder and about
the conspiracy behind it and the people that and then it's about the chase,
the hunt, the literal hunt for John Wilkes Booth, I mean very much
like what he's saying here, but it was very, very well written.
So it's reported that in nineteen thirty, apparently nineteen thirty Philip's Stern, he
woke up in the morning and as he was shaving, he was looking in
the mirror, did not like his reflection, and according to an Elie Times
article, he said, quote, what have you ever done to justify your
existence? That's correct, phil What have you done for the world you live
in? So he's a writer, and he fortunately does not kill himself,
but he takes this as inspira and proceeds to take the next several years to
write a four thousand word short story about the suicidal man, George Pratt,
and like you said, given the unique opportunity by a stranger, guardian,
angel, whatever, to see what life would have been like if he had
never been born. And so he turned this this story into his agent.
He wanted to sell it. He was like, can I sell to any
fucking publisher? He couldn't. Nothing, nobody bit, nobody bit story as
old as entertainment, right, And so he used his own money then to
print two hundred copies of the story in the form of a pamphlet. And
then, like you said, he sent it out to you know, two
hundred or so family or friends as a Christmas card during World War two.
So three months later, so probably around March of I forget what year he
did it. I think, No, nineteen forty three is when he is
when he mailed it out. So three months later he gets a call from
Western Union and the operator is reading a telegram which said that his agent had
sold the film rights to the story to RKO Pictures for ten thousand dollars,
with who to star in the film Jimmy Stewart carry Grant a carry Grant,
the original star of It's a Wonderful Well it could have been of It's a
wonderful life. Yeah. This is the San Francisco Examiner, May twenty first,
nineteen forty four, sharing about the big news get rich Quickers breathed hard
when they read that a Hollywood studio paid author Philip van Dornstern ten thousand dollars
for a Christmas card that he sent his friends. The card will be made
into a screen vehicle for they said it screen vehicle for carry grant entitled the
Greatest Gift. What the get rich quick may not have noticed is that the
card comprised twenty one pages and contained a four thousand word story in the form
of a whimsical fantasy. I like the idea of get rich Quickers. Yeah,
it's a yeah. I mean, I surely know that there are certainly
many people like that. But I like the idea that there is a term
for it, and that they're they're looking at and that they're and that they're
writing it to them. So, uh, the guy who received the copy
of it, I don't really know. I could not find how producer David
Hampstead or Hempstead got his hands on it. I don't know if he was
a friend of Stearns or what. But he's the guy who got it and
he showed it to Carry Grant and then Carrie Grant brought it to RKO and
they purchased it. So do you do you know who the first writer to
take a stab at it was? Oh? No, I don't. Dalton
Trombo. Yep, he was. Do you know him at all? Do
you know his name? Oh? Very great good. It's a decent movie.
It's more like a kind of plays like a TV movie with Brian Kranston
playing Trumbo. He was one of the uh, he was one of the
Hollywood ten that we've talked about in regards to the the h UAC and you
know, the communist stuff. He was one of the original ten blackballed and
he was the first guy to take a stab at adapt in the story.
His version, Uh, George is a politician and basically, you know,
very very politically, you know, right, very politically, like I guess
he he was a a low level I don't know, probably a state senator
or whatever, and then he you know, sold out his ideals for career
advancement in power and you know it's about it's it's more of a literal version
of of kind of taking your life back. It has nothing to do with
Christmas, per se. No, not at all. And in fact,
i'll tell you right now. Frank also not a Christmas move. To him,
this was not meant to be a Christmas move. He's wrong. I
agree. I'm just letting you know what he said. He's the direct draft
role. So Rko was like, no, no, this doesn't work.
So they they bring in keep on. They're paying these guys to write these
scripts. They bring in Clifford Odets to write a draft. They bring in
a guy, Mark Connelly as well, and to share about that. I'm
going to play a clip here. This is This is a clip of Frank
Capra Junior from a nineteen ninety one special entitled It's a Wonderful Life, A
personal remembrance. Mark Connelly created too. George's mister plunter. I know I
ought to jump up the chance, but I just in that version, instead
of seeing the world as if he had never been born, George finds a
world with a bad George in it, the rich, cold man he might
have been if he had lived his life differently. Clifford o'debts picked up on
this idea, but in his version the two Georgia end up slugging it out
on the bridge where the good George kills the bad George. That's a fun
idea. It's a neat idea. They should make that. It's yeah,
they could, they they could make that. I think it's a neat idea.
I don't know if it would have played as well in this one,
but it is a neat idea, the idea of there being like kind of
dual universes and they have to battle it out. Yeah, now it has
to be you have to see the world in George Bailey, and he has
to be like this loane this loaner. He has to He's surrounded by love,
He's surrounded by people. But the key moments for Bailey are always,
you know, and aside where he's alone, like rubbling to himself making decisions
right, you know. Way in consequences, to have two George's would strip
away all the most powerful moments in the movie. Agreed, Agreed. And
the neat thing though, is that he did capra. He he did use
elements from all three of the previous previous versions of the drafts of the script
into it, specifically with with Trumbull, like the darker elements, you know
it kind of the second half stuff leading into the the kind of the fantasy
of of him not being born. But we'll talk about that later. So
let's not beat around the bush. You want to know why the hell this
movie qualifies. I've studied this movie, as I've indicated, and I haven't
found anything. Yeah. Yeah, uh it's simple. Actually it's it's as
simple as it can be. There's a wrestler in the movie. There is
a professional wrestler in the movie. And I offer to you, Constantine Romanovkay,
go ahead, and I'll tell you what too. I have found that
googling at a at a at a fucking warp speed. Yep, I have
found him. I have found him in the movie, so I I will
be able to point you out. It is a blink and you'll miss it,
no question about it. But he is there. And actually, you
know what, you know what I can do, I have what you can
do? I can I can because you don't need to. Uh. You
know this is by this point everyone knows this is what I'm using for the
for the poster image for uploading it. But so you won't so no one
else you know, everyone else has seen this already by this point. So
that's him. That's him smoking a pipe. What's that in the bar?
That's in the bar that is during the uh that's you can see you can
see up on the top there, that's Jimmy Stewart walking in it's and in
front of him is in front of him? Is I believe that's Clarence.
This is during during the dark bartender is going to slip them left? Yeah,
when when Nick is yeah, exactly when Nick kind of goes uh crazy
on him. So that's him that image and do but what the fuck is
Yep? Exactly exactly. That's the people that aren't familiar. The best one
this this is close, but the best one is Independence Day. Tell the
people Joe Fowler in that for like, let me tell you there's not even
that clear of a picture of Joe Fowler. Yeah, yeah, just a
fucking like throw, like the camera's moving and you see him for for half
a second blurring and that you better believe that that's the freeze frame for the
logo as best unless it's an inspiration, I mean, I try as best
I can to get a good shot of whatever is the reason. Unless there
really is none, you know or I don't. I can't find the person.
But here we go. Are you ready? This is? This is?
This is one for the books. There is so little out there,
but I got so much. All right, there's like so little out in
the general public, and I this is if you're wondering, So no one
else knows this. But the other day in the email comes in onto the
laps fan email and I get a text from Jack did you just sign up
for an ancestry account? Oh right, yeah, I thought it was a
hash. Nope, it was because I was trying to find as much as
I could about Constantine Romanov. Wow, constants like he's looking at the pictures
of this guy, looks like he's in like a Chekov novel. Or I
know he's seriously does he seriously does? Constantine Romanov was born Friedrich Wilhelm Heimenrich
August Meyer on August twenty first, eighteen eighty one, in Dielingen, Germany.
I know very little about his about his early life, not a lot
out there in terms of how he wasn't you know what happened in Germany.
But at some point he moved to Bremen, Germany. This is on his
petition for naturalization, and it said that he emigrated from there on May twelve,
nineteen oh five, arriving in New York on May twenty. Second,
did you find the actual record? Yes, oh my god, good for
you. I found I found the record of it. I'm actually going to
show it to you. You know, Tim because of the date of birth.
I know the date of birth. I also know it because of his
occupation. Oh okay, there was enough out there. I'm gonna that,
like I was able to kind of confirm stuff, like some family have put
out some things like there's there's some websites out there about it, but okay,
this is this is the naturalization thing. Image. Yeah, this was
like every single person who had even a whiff of feature. I just read
a whole feature article about the person who's pictured as Gower's son. When he
looks at a picture of him, how that was his rush with its rifle
life right right. Everybody has a little person. I've never heard about this
guy. This guy, Yeah no, and you probably wouldn't either, like
this guy, so you know, kind of far out there. But I'm
going to show you. I'm gonna send you a screenshot in a second here
of of his So this is this. This is from a few years later,
but this is his application for naturalization, and I want you to look
at what it says. His occupation is sure will it's the first one.
Uh actor showman, I mean, but he could only mean one thing absolutely
when you say showman, you fucking how about this? This is his uh,
this is his draft registration form. Here I'm going to send you and
look at look at the bottom and you will see it. So again the
same guy. You can see like they all to share a lot of the
same information. I occupation wrestler, professional, wrestler, professional, that's fucking
incredible. You got you got to post these all right with the episode.
Well for the patrons, I will so. Uh. Yeah, So he
comes to States. He he sometime moves west. He lives in Omaha for
a while, and it's here I don't see. This is where there's finally
some other evidence of of some like actual professional wrestling. So in Omaha,
Uh, he would train under a wrestler and trainer by the name of Farmer
Burns. You know Farmer Burns. Yeah, of course, all right,
notable catch wrestler, uh and then a famous trainer workouts I get this is
His workouts are are fascinating. It's all about using your your own body as
resistance. You know. All of his workouts have to do with that,
Like instead of lifting weights and shit, it's like using like creating your own
resistance. So the first evidence I was able to find of Romanov wrestling was
in the Omaha Daily News. It was dated December fourteenth, nineteen oh nine,
and he was wrestling at the time. This, you know, it's
it's great when I'm able to kind of when I'm able to make a connection
and see that. Oh wait a minute. This guy didn't always wrestle as
Constantine Romanov. He had a different name. It like opens up a whole
new you know, yes, a whole new level of floodgates there. So
he wrestled in the early nineteen hundreds as Jack Myers and in the first match
that I that I found, he defeated Patrolman Jensen was the other was his
opponent's name described as this is a direct quote, first coming of the Big
boss Man the police. Yes, first coming up the Big boss Man,
the Policeman wrestler. Oh fucking hell yeah, that's what they call John Pessick.
Two and a lot of other shooters. He wrestled Will Hocuff do you
know him? You know? Later that month for a they wrestled for a
one dollar perse Jack Friedrich Constantine. He lost. Nineteen eleven, he wrestled
Frank Ducreze on the undercard. This is actually the match itself actually had less
to do the event or this posting, rather this article whatever I was reading,
had less to do with the match itself. But what was interesting was
that his match, Romanov's match on the undercard or the main event of that
show featured a twenty minute and this is a quote moving picture. I love
that nineteen eleven moving pick of the Gotch Hackenschmidt Championship match from three years prior
from So this is like a circuit screening basically, Yeah, basically they had
this whole, like a whole prelim match card to then play the twenty minute
film. That is fucking awesome, right. You know when we talk about
like you know, Anoki Ali being the first closed circuit of its type,
and then you talk about of course WrestleMania one and yep and all of that
starcade before it, Nope, they're doing it the earliest. You're gonna find
right here. They're doing a nineteen eleven you know, with the brand new
moving picture and the Farmer Burns you mentioned he was sort of the first.
Him and Tom Jenkins are cited as kind of the first American national wrestling champions,
people who were written about Coast to Coast as the top wrestling. Sure,
sure, yeah, he's he got, he got and and and there
the story gets really fascinating. I think, I don't know. I couldn't
necessarily find out if if some of the stuff is is a shoot or a
work. But I'll let you help me out with that. So by nineteen
twelve, Myers Romanov was the light heavyweight champion of Nebraska and Iowa and he
was about to He was getting set to face his mentor, Farmer Burns.
This is the Midland Empire News, May seventh, nineteen twelve. Farmer Burns,
a grand old man of the wrestling games in the city, Arriving last
night from Sheridan. Burns and Jack Mayers will wrestle to a finish next Wednesday
Night. Next Wednesday Night at Kennedy Hall, catches catch Ken rules to govern.
Ted Ferrell and Will Mathison, both of Billings, Will in all probability
go on as a preliminary. Burn's record is of such length that it would
take a good part of a day to review it. He meeting and defeating
the best man of both countries, Frank Gotch. He of heavyweight fame,
is a pupil of the famous Farmer, and his claim to being the best
in the game is in no little way responsible to the schooling received by the
past master of the mat, Past Master of the mat, qu were almost
there past, that's right, Farmer Burns, the past master Mayas is confident
that he can defeat or at least secure one fall. He holds the light
heavyweight championship of Nebraska and Iowa, meeting some of the best in the business,
staying with Mamout twenty one and twenty three minutes at Fremont, Nebraska,
while he was also met Jess what to God, Henry Ortman, and many
other notables. It is expected that many out of town people will witness the
coming bout, which looks like a strong attraction. Bands will worked out daily
at a local gymnasium. This routine is considered a daily duty, with him
he enjoying it as much as some folks do. Eating their three meals a
day. Amazing. Who who writes like that? Heroes do? That's right?
Like that? Oh man, what a time to be in the business.
I know, well, are are our boy with? Oh? Yes,
well he's of this generation like you writing about he arrived in town last
night. The idea that carnivals, That's exactly what it is. Romanov would
lose. He lost two straight falls, going nearly forty minutes. By mid
nineteen twelve, He's adopted the nickname Romanov. As a doctor. Jack Myers
at this point adopted the nickname the German Thunderbolt. The German Thunderbolt Jack Myers
and he would spend pretty much the first half of the year pursuing Farmer Burns.
Continuously throughout nineteen twelve, and they wanted to have another showdown and specifically
they were looking to have a match set in Butte, but there was a
spade bump. This is from the Butte Minor June sixth, nineteen twelve.
Jack mayas the German Thunderbolt and Farmer Burns will not be allowed to wrestle here.
July tenth was the statement made by County Attorney T. J. Walker
last night. He claims that he informed Mayas when the latter arrived in Butte
that the Montana laws prohibited wrestling matches and he would not be allowed to go
on. The official asserts that Mayas went ahead with arrangements for the match without
consulting him. Quote, I shall instruct the sheriff to stop the match,
said mister Walker. It will not be pulled off in this county, for
I will have the sheriff and his men step in before it started. That
decision is final. Awesome, amazing, Like what is this like a shoot?
Like? Remember I know bare knuckle boxers would be chased out of states
for this. We're not Jiles Sullivan. I want to tell you right now,
we are not having any of those fucking wrestling matches happening in Butte.
All right, How they ran the UFC out of town in the nineties,
Yeah, early night? Right? That that ship is is is listen?
All right? We're not it's gladiator bullshit, all right, We're not here
to listen. It's not sport, it's not fun. That ship is not
happening in Butte. Yes, well, I don't know, I don't I
got that guy sounds like a Butte By the way, it's a butte clock.
I don't know if that was a work or not, because there ended
up being a match, but it was. It was so but it was
weird. It wasn't done as like an official match. It was done as
an exhibition. Yeah, and you know there was no undercard in it.
And it started with Farmer Burns giving a lecture about physical culture. Yeah,
he had a book. I'm a big fan of physical culture, right,
physical culture book? I did I have it? I'm not surprised if you
do. And he would show locks and holds, yes, and expansions.
You would show locks and different smears, bagels, expansive bagels. And in
the advertisement it was it was said that ladies were especially invited because there was
quote nothing of an objectionable nature, of an objectionable nature at the event.
Oh nice, So they don't take their cocks out, basically, basically they're
not taking their cocks out and like peeing on on all the audience members reading
the tea leaves here. There was a point in time one of the states,
perhaps the only state really yeah, that ran the UFC out of town
and forced them to overnight move a show to Alabama was New York New York
had an actual rule in the books that banned them. May I remember that?
Yeah, it stood until like two thousand and eighteen. I think it
was. Yeah, because it was it was the it was the McGregor fight,
right, and then it has the it sold, the made the record
for MSG for the most huge part wasn't just McGregor. It was exactly you
could see UFC at Madison Square writing for the first and it was like I
think, if I remember from my tour correctly, it was like twenty five
thousand dollars for ringside or wow, you know what everyone catch side seats.
I think it was just like a five million dollar Gators. Yeah, maybe
it's past ten. I don't remember now. It was huge. I remember
it was huge, but it was it was uh yeah, you like paying
like maybe it's twenty yeah, twenty or twenty five thousand dollars for for like
a seat. I get to look it up, because that's that's an amazing
number. What was that? It was wild? No, you have see
two ninety five was a different show. Let's see McGregor Alvarez. That's when
he unified the featherweight and lightweight titles. He became a two fight champion on
that night. You have CE two o five that's what it was. No,
Yeah, you f C two o five Gate, Yeah, that's right.
You're damn right. They sold seventeen point seven million dollars worth of taking
right, right, I mean UFC is fucking popping Champagne Corts at that point
if they do two million, yep or five million. So anyway, So
for years and years, you know, professional MMA was banned, Like you
could not stage a professional MMA card in the state of New York, right.
However, it was essentially considered a loophole that if you did not pay
the fighters, and thus it was an amateur show, it was allowed.
State authorities were not within their rights to shut it down. If it was
merely an exhibition, then like a smoker, they would call it. Sometimes
it then fell more into the category of like sparring with a crowd in the
building, which you know, if you're going to ban sparring, then you
have to shut down every single fucking gym in the state, right because who's
to say when it becomes a spectator event or not. So the line is
drawn at whether or not the participants are paid, therefore making it a professional
event, and so exhibition is is just that it to signal that what we're
doing here is not, you know, competing for purse. It's not you
know, fighting professionally for money. It's putting on display, much like you
know you'd go to a karate dojo and watch the guy's break boward. Are
they allowed to sell tickets or are they just not allowed to pay? I
don't know about that. I mean, certainly I don't know about the case
here with with Farmer Burns, but I know that in New York when they
would have these shows, it would sort of be like an underground thing where
even though they kind of thought they were getting away with it, there was
still you know, a fair degree of anxiety about attracting attention. So you'd
have to be sort of plugged into the right back channels to even know when
and where to show up. Well, so it became like a very cool
fight club feel thing, gotcha, because there's a sense of danger and no,
I don't think you but no, I don't think they sell tickets.
I think that would have been a huge giveaway, and I don't when I
think about people, you know, it's when I did MMA podcast, I
remember talking to a guy named Jim Genia who covered the scene extremely closely and
would always go to these shows. And I don't remember him telling me that
he ever had to pay to go to these. It was more like the
bat signal went up. I got you limited amount of time for word to
spread, you know what I mean. But if you were plugged into the
scene, you knew when and where to be. And so that's how a
lot of New York fighters got their first reps in was these shows that were
like not really fight cards, it was it was very it's a very risky
business interesting. So I think that's that's caan't amount. And plus exhibition also
takes away this idea that you're defrauding the public potentially by presenting about as legitimate
when it isn't. If you call it an exhibition, then you're more in
the in the clear if it ever comes out interesting interesting Meers counted the lights,
so he is now zero for two against his mentor, Farmer Burns.
In other news, I just stumbled upon this this story while I was reading
about the exhibition. But in other news at the time, William A.
Door of Stockton, California was charged with the murder of George E. Marsh,
a soap manufacturer out of Lynn, Massachusetts. Wow. Marsh's body was
discovered at Revia Beach, pierced by several bullets. That's like, that's like
the kind of shooting that Sergeant Adam Funck would have responded exactly right. But
just standing there, he just he looks at the body. He takes like
a sniff of the air and just kind of looks around, and he knows
exactly who did it and where he's going to go to kill the motherfucker.
Absolutely, and he's excited because now he has license to start shooting at somebody.
That's right, exact exactly. That's that. It actually gives him a
real fucking heart on because he's like, now I get to fucking kill motherfuckers.
Huh. It's like getting laid tonight, motherfucker. Yeah, essentially.
Then fast forward to nineteen fifteen and a different Jack Myers lost a match to
George Cottsanaris, and our Jack Myers took umbrage with with this guy. You
know this having been written about. He actually wrote in to I don't know
if you're familiar with Sandy Griswold. He was a sports columnist for the Omaha
World Herald, and I guess I don't know, not to be right,
of course. And it you know, if you look up the like if
you ever look up the Omaha, Nebraska like the Omaha World Herald, you
know, and you and you and you do a search for Sandy Griswold,
it is like he's like huge there, very huge, as being like a
local sports legend in like the turn of the century, nineteen hundreds type stuff.
So the little section here, the little sports section, was called Sandy's
Dope. I don't know why I don't the straight dope, Like, okay,
is that what that's That's what it is, Okay, all right,
So Sandy's dope. Uh and uh, this is what what Constantine Romanov wrote,
My dear Sandy. I'm still in the ring and not badly scarred at
that Russell tonight a big Frenchman named Manatel. It will be a walk away.
But I most desire to say is that I see in the World Herald
where Jack Myers was defeated by one of the many Greek champions with which this
land of Ours seems to be written. At Yankton, South Dakota, a
few nights ago, Now this is some fellow posing under my name, and
I do not want my Omaha friends misled. How is he spelling Myers by
the way? H M, Well, so he spells it me e y
e r s, and some people spell it m y e r s,
and so like they it's it's it's confusing, but he does it m e
y e r s most of the time. Now this is some fellow posing.
In conclusion, let me add that I would be tickled to death to
take on any of the wrestlers who are now so much in the limelight.
Preferring Joe Stetcher, then Hussein, and last but not least, Charlie Cutler,
Ernst and Caddock can have my game any time they name. When do
I appear in good old Omaha again, I hope to prove that When I
do appear in good old Omaha again, I hope to prove to you that
I am a match for any of these men. That is a match on
the level. None of you are three hour cooked up affairs, but a
real match for blood yours, very respectfully, Jack Myers, cooked up affair,
cooked up affairs. I can give it to me like oxygen, yep,
and so that's nineteen fifteen, and by nineteen seventeen, sometime before January
of nineteen seventeen, Myers goes up to San Francisco and he transitions up there
and around here. I you know, this is when he started wrestling under
the name Constantine Romanoff and with the Sea. By the way, the Constantine,
yes with yeah, that's an actual rich Yeah right, Constantine is with
a Sea. That's who I was looking at a picture of when I said,
he looks like he's sort of a Checkov novel, because he probably was.
See let me send you you want to see You want to see our
guy? You already showed him to me. No, no, in his
wrestling days. Of course I do. This is our guy? Question?
Is that that's our guy? Oh? My god? Big menacing some Fritz
van Eric hands up. Oh yeah, just the kind of guy you want
to hang out with in a dark alley. Yep. So uh. His
first order of business going up to the San Francisco territory was challenging Pacific Coast
champion Ad Santel. Do you Knoweel Okay, a key figure in Luthes's life.
All right, very good and a lot of techniques, excellent wait,
Ads showed luthees. Yes, oh yeah, actually that would make sense.
This is nineteen seventeen for fox sake. La Times. January seventeen, nineteen
seventeen, Ad Sentel disposed of the championship aspirations of Constantine Romanov in little less
than an hour and a quarter tonight or before only a fair audience at the
Civic Auditorium. It wasn't much of about as matches have been going recently,
by no means up to the standard set by Santel and Lewis. Romanov was
decidedly disappointment, as his strength was a minus quantity, and at no stage
did he have the German in jeopardy. Santel gained his first fall in three
minutes. In seventeen seconds, Romanov was behind Ad with a poor body scissors
when Santel raised himself to his feet threw Romanoff backwards so hard the Russian had
the win knocked out of him and gained the honors with comparative ease. The
second fall was far more interesting from the standpoint of the spectators, although it
was evident from start to finish that Ad was the master. The end came
in one hour and nine minutes in fourteen seconds with an admission of defeat by
Romanov, who conceded the match. Ad had his man in a painful arm
scissors and the twisting of the arm was more than Constantine could stand as Ad
was pressing the heaviest chapter the mat. Romanov's signaled defeat with his free hand,
and referee Charles Andrews of the University of California pointed to Santel as the
winner. He was losing very He's definitely, I'll tell you what he is.
Definitely a heel, no question, no question. Romanov for sure,
total heel. And he made challenges to Ad Strangler Lewis a professor Eto.
He actually he challenged Professor Eto in a jiu jitsu catch combo mat. There
you go, a jiu jitsu catch combo match. And it was reported wrestler
Verse Juda probably I probably had a judo jackin on right, right, and
so he knows jiu jitsu right. It was reported that Romanov, they said
this that he was a clever wrestler and knew the jiu jitsu game from start
to finish. Oh my god, I don't think he knew jiu jitsu at
all. From what I know from what I've found, he had no expertise
in jiu jitsu. And then he challenged and faced off with a guy named
William Demitra Dematrol William Dematrol in March nineteen seventeen. And this actually had some
very very interesting ramifications, but I'm going to read you read to you about
the match. From the Los Angeles Evening Express March tenth, nineteen seventeen,
an audience of thirty five hundred wrestling fans decided the Constantine Romanov William Dematrol match
at the Shrine on Datoium Friday night. The fans voted to call it a
draw. After two hours and three minutes two hours and three minutes wow of
exhausting struggle, the two metmen lay prone on the floor, weary and gasping.
When the merciful decision was rendered. Roman Off was on top two week
two. That's a double Broadway right there, Double Broadway, all right.
Roman Off was on top two week to work on Dematrol, who lay on
his side, helpless from exertion for half an hour. Before the end of
the end, the crowd had been clamoring for a draw. Can we end
this please? Clamoring for a draw. Why he wasn't kiss, not kiss,
not um. The call finally became so insistent that Dematrol's seconds asked referee
McLeod to render a draw decision, chopping Murray. The announcer crawled between the
ropes and put it up to the crowd. Draw came back. The answer
roared from three thousand throats. I think more wrestling matchesy to be determined by
crowd decision. I agree, I think you know, when they've had judges
and stuff, just give it to the crowd. Yep, give it to
the crowd. And Referey MacLeod slapped the wrestlers, threw up both hands and
left the ring. Fuck it, I'm out, Yes. Romanov tottered to
his corner, reeling from one side of the ring to the other. Dematrol
raised himself to his feet with an effort and dropped in his chair, utterly
exhausted. Romanov made a brilliant showing, but he has not but he has
not the strength to compete against the husky present day wrestlers. He proved the
most skillful matman ever seen here, but he was pitted against Dematrol, a
powerful giant and also fairly clever. The remarkable manner in which Romanov used his
legs was the feature of the match. Time and time again. He snapped
a scissors hold on Dematrol's body, but he didn't have the strength to retain
the grip. Dematrol would break away easily. Demontrol had little success with his
holds Romanov Romano Romanov counted like the skillful Mattman. He is a squirm a
grip, a twist in. Romanov would shoot out of Dematrol's grip and back
on his feet. In spite of its long duration, the match was speedy,
the wrestlers fast in and out of holds with the rapidity of a motion
picture camera. The crowd seemed to light the exhibition and gave the panting gladiators
a great hand of the finish. The feature of the bout occurred during the
introducing before the main event. Charlie Murray announced Dematrol as the Greek champion and
did not observe that Gus Kavas was in Romanov's corner. In a flash,
Kavaras was in the center of the ring, demanding that Murray retract the statement.
I am the champion, shouted the excitable Kavaras. Dematrol interfared, and
Cavaras pulled off his coat, ready to start a fight on the instant.
The fare ended with Dematrol promising to meet Cavaras for a five hundred dollars side
bed in the near future. So the day after this match was in the
papers, the La Times published a major expose. Oh my goodness, I'm
gonna read this one normal. This is March eleventh, nineteen seventeen La Times.
The man who wrestled Bill Dematrol Friday Night under the name of Constantine Romanov
is not Constantine Romanov at all. His real wrestling name is Jack Myers,
and no, he isn't even Russian. But he is one of the best
wrestlers in the United States. He is the best known quote ringer and dark
horse in the Matt game in the world. Constantine Romanov is a big dub
of a wrestler weighing two hundred and twenty pounds whose name Myers took. Whose
name Myers took when he came to the coast to wrestle at Santel. The
real Romanov is a Russian and is still in the Middle West. Myers has
made a living all his life by wrestling under assumed names and throwing or holding
famous opponents to draws, while his backers make fortunes on him. Oh my
god, his biggest backers and trainers have been Farmer Burns exposed and John Berg
exposed. The reason that strangler Ed Lewis refused to wrestle the alleged Romanov here
was because Paul Martinson tipped him off. Martinson was once a victim of the
mysterious Jack Myers. It seems he dropped into some town bet a fortune that
he could throw the local strong farmer landed on his the local stronghomer. Oh't,
No, local strong farmer landed on his back, and woke up to
find that his opponent had been none other than the mysterious Jack Myers. He
recognized him in Romanov and tipped off Billy Sandow. Lewis's manager, Bill Dematral,
is responsible for the discovery. During the match, Demontrol made this remark,
this is in Romanov. This guy's a freak with his legs. Oh
my gosh. And when the match was over, Demontrol called puss Halbatr puss
Halbacher aside and said puss. This guy. This guy's name is in Romanov.
I don't know who he is, but I can throw the real Romanov
twice in forty minutes. Again. Yesterday morning, Demontrol claimed that somebody had
slipped something over on him. When I was matched with Romanov. I wired
some friends of mine who had wrestled the Russian. They wrote back that Romanov
was a big dub who weighed about two hundred and twenty pounds and had no
science. Practically everybody in the Middle West has thrown him. I thought when
I saw this fellow in Halbertroch's office that he had probably been sick and grown
thinner. That made it all the easier for me. Imagine my surprise when
I found myself up against the cleverest wrestler that I ever met. He has
all the stuff Santel has, and a lot more. I don't know what
his name is, but it isn't Romanov. Ow. While Dematrol was in
Halbert's office, the alleged Romanov came in and the Greek accused him of working
under an assumed name. At first, the wrestler denied that he was anybody
else than Romanov, and finally said I'll tell you I am Bill, I'm
Jack Myers. Yess Demontroll let out a low whistle. Well, I'll be
damned, so you're Myers. To those clustered in the office, the name
Myers meant nothing, but Demontrol went on to explain Myers is the biggest dark
horse in the wrestling game. Whenever a wrestler goes into a town and builds
up a big reputation and becomes popular, Myers blows into town under an assumed
name. The wrestler has probably never seen him, for it has been part
of the alleged Romanov's game not to let anyone any more wrestlers see him than
possible. The man consents to a match, and the odds are all on
the local idol farmer, Burns and a half dozen others blow quietly into town
or have representatives there and clean up. That is what the alleged Romanov intended
to do to Santel in San Francisco. Jack went to San Francisco as Romanov.
Santel took him on and the match was a humdinger quote, Romanov wrestling
the Dutchman to a three hour draw. The next match, the one right
before this, Steture Go, the alleged Romanov intended to get Santel. Then
came the fatal accident. Romanov's head hit against the floor and he was knocked
out, just like Gotch was in his match with Beale. This Jack Myers
has had many victims. He even fooled Frank Gotch and stayed an hour with
the champion while the latter was betting his head off that he would throw him
in that time. He wrestled Mahmout, the greatest of all Turk wrestlers,
to an hour and a half draw no falls. Under the same conditions,
he held Joe Stetcher for over an hour while Farmer Burns made bets with the
farmers of Nebraska that the mysterious Stranger would last more than twenty minutes. He
ran the terrible Turk Tousif Hassein out of Omaha. According to Bill Dematrol,
it seems Hussain had built up a wonderful reputation as a wrestler and was drawing
ten thousand dollars houses. Then a tall, skinny guy under some simple name
like Jack Jones blew into town and challenged to see if Hussain. The match
was arranged in a week, Yeah, right, in a week, Farmer
Burns had his had had placed sixty thousand dollars in bets on the stranger.
Whussain heard about it and began investigating. He found out his opponent was Jack
Myers. The day before the match, you see Hussein left Omaha Dematrol not
Romanov vouches for these stories on Jack Myers alias Constantine Romanov and one hundred other
wrestling names. Romanov is a simple, skinny, inoffensive individual and after seeing
him, the wrestlers think they can throw him. So, like, I
don't know, what do you make of that? He's a lapsed fan wrestling
podcast with Jack and Carnacio and JP Sorrow. It's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast.
I don't know. It seems like somebody's trying to save face for losing
to him, and so it's like, you know, there's like a story
that they cook up after he leaves town about how uh you know his opponent
was disadvantaged because it wasn't who he said he was. Do you think that
the article is a shoot or is it like you think of complete work and
just I don't know what purpose the work would serve. Yeah, I don't
either. It sounds like something that was about to come out and everyone involved
decided to get ahead of and actually, you know, breathe life into so
that they can characterize it somehow. I mean, yeah, I don't know.
I mean that it was considered a huge revelation, you know for reporters
back, Oh yeah, to find out that wrestlers were multiple people and had
the same matches, and you know, because there was no expectation that once
they left the area that anybody would be in a position to put two and
two together and fall all of them or compare and contrast in another area.
So I don't know. I think it's interesting. There's always some there's always
some reason that serves the local promoter's interests that a story like that hits a
rival. A rival promoter will pick up the phone and say, I'll have
you know that if you look into this, you'll find that Jack Myers is
and Jack Myers at all confirm it. He's a goddamn German from Germany,
so he's one of that. He's one of them Germans from Germany for foctioning.
I feel like I didn't I struggle to really like identify where in the
article this this happened to be the case, but it always smacks to me
of like some kind of an effort to tell the fans that to like excuse
somebody's loss. When you go into all of this, you know that somehow
it's But it's weird. He didn't lose, like Demontral didn't lose. It
was a draw. That's why it was called draw. It's very weird.
Maybe the fact they didn't win, maybe was enough of a reason for his
handlers and his promoters to get this story out there so that it kind of
mitigated in the fans' eyes. But like, wouldn't wouldn't I mean, okay,
but here's here, here's where I again I I I. I mean,
so so they go into this knowing that it's going to be a work
obviously they I mean, what do they how do they like? So I
guess here's where, Here's where I I I I'm trying to figure out.
So then when when when when Romanov comes into face Dematrol, they know what
they're doing, they know they're going to go to this finish and so then
they have the fans go out there and so then but then so then afterwards
they do this story for Dematral to save face to the fans. This is
a one theory I would have. Yeah, there's not enough in that piece
to make me really say this is what I think happened here, But because
like I mean, what can happen is in the body of the match,
he could take liberties and even though they went to the planned draw, he
may have pissed him off and made it look weak. That could happen in
this area. There was a constant, I mean I'm talking every night paranoia
that somebody was going to get in there and double cross you and just you
know, leave town. There was such a such a smaller price to pay
because there wasn't quite yet the you know, the monopolistic NWA National Wrestling Alliance
that could make you pay a price for going against the wishes of the promoter.
In fact, it was open season. Like basically, it wasn't so
much that people were afraid of wrestlers going rogue. It was they were afraid
of wrestlers who could shoot getting approached by other promoters that wanted to fuck with
this promoter and getting them to do it. It was more like, not
that this guy's some kind of individualistic loose cannon. But he's put up right
it right. No matter what financial price we tried to make him pay for
doing this to us, the reward for him is even greater on the side
of the promoter that's looking to fuck with me and made him a promise.
It's no different than you know, it's no different than all the rumors about
you know, Vince paying Race not to show up, Fern paying Iron Chic
to shoot on Hogan or whatever the fuck. So that that's kind of where
my head goes, is its promotional games being played. And Okay, I
don't know. I mean, there's no nothing in with the description that you
read that made it seem like even though it went to a draw, you
know that that the Romanov clearly dominated. Yeah, no, I mean it
sounded like it was very fair. So again, that's why all this stuff
kind of seemed such an interesting so interesting to me that this is all happening
either way. You know, even if even if there wasn't something in the
body of the match that caused it dispute, you could still have a rival
promoter that wants to fuck with the promoter of this match, and a story
like this makes him look like a dishonest broker. It makes him look like
somebody there the public can't trust to you know, present it in your knowledge
of Farmer Burns was he did he make bets like this all the time,
make bets as far as he was going to win. Yeah, like take
his guy in and make a bet. You know, like they're saying,
like sixty thousand dollars in bets, no idea. I mean that's some that
can be that can be dicey too, because you know, that's why we
talked about this all the time. That's why you know, state athletic commissions
regulate boxing. It's not especially in Nevada. It's like it's of course for
safety reasons, but more than anything, it's so that there's not a fucking
avalanche of lawsuits right by people who lost, you know, all their money
on the fight, believing that it wasn't a true contest and the fix was
in the whole time and right, and that the winner was picked more to
create a cash windfall for people that were positioned from a gambling perspective on one
side of the fight, and the only way to mitigate people people still say
that every single time a fight goes down if it's a close fight, it's
oh yeah, of course they made sure this guy either didn't lose or got
the draw. Or even if it's a knockout, they'll say you took a
fall and the punch wasn't that hard. He could have got up. And
you know, when people start gambling on sports, they start becoming conspiracy theorists.
Of of course, you know how deep the because that's that's how the
brain is trained to work in this country. When something doesn't go out,
when you're wrong in a prediction, you immediately switched to the mindset of like,
why was this? Why was the deck stacked the whole time? And
of course it went this way. But I can't have been wrong. That
couldn't have happened. It has to be something greater than that, because what
I saw with my own two eyes didn't comport to my conception of what it
would have looked like when I thought about it ahead of time. Anyway,
That's that's a big thing. When you start gambling, right, you know,
you really can manipulate things. And I don't know, maybe maybe somehow
in this gambling mess, whoever put that reporter up to this story or put
his scent on the trail, served to lose in the exchange. Maybe they
had money on a winner here and they went and did a draw. That's
possible. Interesting because a draw is always like the last thing anyone bets,
you know, like right, nobody bets a draw. No, there's huge
fall. Like if you bet a draw in the UFC, like they happen,
they happen, you know. Maybe I don't know, I don't want
to I haven't studied it, but maybe like ten times a year, maybe
eight times a year out of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of fights.
And if you bet a draw in a big time fight, you can
make a lot of money, because that is not something a lot of people
are going forward. Interesting, very interesting, and pro wrestling, especially of
that era where matches went for an hour and so often people were accustomed to
guys just battling to the time limit. I'm not so sure that that would
be you know, a huge windfall. Yeah. All this this this era
stuff always is so fascinating to me because I'm always wondering who who, how
many people are in the know about what actually happened, right, who's in
the dark. And that's when you find that you know. Even though wrestling
is work and it's been a work as long as it's existed, that doesn't
mean that everybody involved was clued in on everything you know exactly. They may
have included on a number of things. They might not have been included on
everything. The fact that it's all works. As Vincent Mann said once before,
could be said that mister Perfect taught Shawn Michaels everything he knows. He
didn't teach him everything he knows. However, that's exactly exactly correct. Speaking
of that draw scenario, there was a wild thing and I hesitate to say
the exact fight because I'm not sure which one it was, but in Japan
there was a special rule set on a Pride show where if a fight went
the distance to the bell without a stoppage, that the match would be a
draw. That was like an agreed upon term of the match. It was
crow Cup versus Vandaliz Silbe. I could be wrong about that anyway, that
that was the rule. That was a negotiated term, like if we go
the distance, it's a draw no matter what happens in the fight. And
for some reason the odds makers didn't know that, and so they put huge
odds on a draw like like the rare, like the most like it's as
rare as it would be in any other fight. Really, it's like three
thousand times more likely under the specific rules negotiated for this specific fight that would
happen all the time in Japan. To get a fight in the ring,
they would the rules were up for negotiation. It wasn't. The rules weren't
dictated by by the by the government, the state athletic board. And people
made some money before the odds makers figured out that they're that they were offering
that they were offering a big money if if it went to a draw and
not knowing the rules, called for a draw no matter what. So people,
people that were able to bet on a draw made a lot of money
before they change it. Took off the board, Oh for sure, and
it went it went to a draw. But did a draw, yes,
pride right. Well that so now this guy's definitely this guy definitely qualifies the
movie for sure. Jesus Christ. Full on Carney, Oh, full on
Carney. So if they started calling him after when this after this expose came
out, the uh All newspapers started calling Romanov the alias. Yes, they
never called him by his name anymore. And he's he must be like so
pissed because he's one of probably six hundred wrestlers in the country doing the exact
same thing. Hmm, absolutely, you know that for a fact. And
then this was great. These are the words, uh from the Daily News
Advertiser. The apparent impossibility of conducting professional wrestling with honesty is again illustrated by
a grand expose now being enjoyed by the Los Angeles Sports Let's go, I
love thought it was real. Yep, yep, break fucking you know here
it is again, folks, once again, all right, here we are
and we just don't know is professional wrestling on the level or not? You
know what year was this that you're reading from? Nineteen seventeen? And how
is it worded? Again? Reread that, please? The apparent impossibility of
conducting professional wrestling with honesty is again illustrated. See what I hear in that
is a disappointed idealist, But I hear is not somebody sort of looking down
I wrestling. It's somebody who actually ishes that wrestling are legitimate. Why can't
they just fucking do it? Yeah, And in that part of the country,
it makes a lot of sense, because wrestling is religion. It's it's
the sport you grew up doing from the cradle, and it kills them that
these these wrestlers prove themselves as legit amateurs and the NCAA's and whatnot, and
then go on to, oh, this was in you know what this is.
Actually this is from Canada. I forgot this is this is a newspaper
from Canada. There you go, this is it. And then they say,
and this is this is what they say at the end. If a
pair of pro wrestlers ever show up in Vancouver to put on a quote tournament
or a quote elimination contest, they should be dropped off piree with window waits
attach to their necks. So it's not real, folks, it's not real.
There's real, and there's not real. This is not real. Yeah,
and it never is, okay. Romanov then went for Joe Stature after
this. He's ready for Joe Stature and he uh uh. He calls him
out in an Mellie Times article saying this quote, I'll kiss your feet if
I can see Joe Statuer. I wanted him, I wanted him, I
watched him. Wressell Ordman and then stole up on the balcony of the La
A c Jim and watched him train the other day with his brother Anton.
I know that he cannot handle me the way he did Ordmand. I'll guarantee
that I saw Andren get ahead, sits on his and practically pinned the world
champion shoulders. If Anton can do that with his head scissors, I had
a ruined show with mine. I don't want to boast the son of a
gun. If I can see Stature two years ago, I wrestled him an
hour and seven minutes. The match ended when I was fouled and unable to
continue. And in all that time, the sucker never saw my back.
I'll tell you, I'll kiss your feet again if I can see Stetcha.
That's wonderful. The match did happen, yes, and set you wipe the
floor with Romanov? Of course he did. Stetra was a huge power player
in the industry at that time. Two falls total of twenty two minutes.
Like you're not beating him? Where'd the match happened? La yep and The
Times wrote that Romanov had the same chance for existence that a fawn has in
the tolls of a Boa constrictor for existence. It's I'm about for winning.
I think that's what you meant, hope existence. There was a rematch between
Romanov and at Centel and the Fresno Morning Republican made note of the fact that
both men were quote owners of owners of the Romanov Brothers body shop, owners
of well educated legs. Both use them freely and and with effect. And
this very fact served to make more interesting the match, and thus a series
of historical events are set in place that conclude with Jr. Speaking about Rob
van Dam's educated, well educated legs. Oh my god, I mean at
this point, is they just graduated high school? You know that's well educated
in nineteen seventeen, That well educated legs, by the way, the working
title for the Miss Hancock territory of WW the well educated legged Miss Hancock.
Both men wrestled clean and hard and were the kind who make the work of
the referee a pleasure. This match was a real match with no trace of
double cross or taint, and bigger crowds would be out to see another match
between these men. This was real, all right. This one was a
real match. I'd love to see a match with a trace of taint.
Got to keep those trunks up. Next time, that'd be. That would
be any naked Midian match, wouldn't it. Absolutely Yeah, Well, Terry
funk that coin game he used to play, whatever it was called. Oh
God, take a coin up your profit in a glass. Shit. So
next year, by nineteen eighteen, it seems like there might be a little
bit of a downswing in the business, at least up in San Francisco.
And this is the San Francisco Examiner, March thirteenth, nineteen eighteen. The
second evening of wrestling in the attempted Matt revival did not prove successful to any
degree at Dreamland Rink last night. In the first place, there was only
a small gathering on hand, and the main event between Fat Connolly and Constantine
Romanov became so tiresome that many of the faithful quote wrastling enthusiasts walked out before
referee Charlie Andrews Runner to a decision called enthusiasts if they walked out, exactly,
they're not the heart I want the hardcore fans, that's exactly. These
aren't the hardcore fans. There were no falls of than those taken on the
spectators who actually said that there were no falls other than those taking on the
spectators who actually paid cash to get in. Oh my god, yeah,
the next falls this guy would see his Bedford falls. The bout started off
as a nose pulling contest and ended up with the men on their feet and
tugging in waltzing around the rink for the last ten minutes. Think you're saying
it's ballet. In between, Romanov made faces at Connolly, for which he
was roundly booed, and he tried several scissors holds for Connolly's part. One
he got on. He got one toe twist that looked promising, but that
was about all. There wasn't an ear spin all night, and the small
gathering did not get any thrills. It was a much poorer effort than on
the first revival, and promoter Frank Schuler had a little to encourage them.
It took Tony Bernardi and George Samson and to put on some of the best
Matt stuff. They were really clever performers, pulling the rollovers, kickouts and
twists of plenty. At the finish, it was deemed to draw and the
wrestling supporters let out a cheer. There was little else noteworthy take away the
wrestlers. Oh my god, what was the line there? There was little
enthusiast What was that one? Five lines ago? Yeah? Was it the
before? He didn't the good match? Yeah that they didn't. The small
gathering did not get any thrills. Okay, the small gathering did not get
any any thrills. A History of Pro Wrestling in San Francisco from nineteen ten
to nineteen fifteen bestseller, and People Won. People wonder why the matches got
more contrived and more showing, right, And this guy's sitting there literally reviewing
the wrestling show like a like a film in nineteen twelve. Hey, this,
this fucking shit is so boring. I don't understand what the fuck's going
on. Why aren't they doing twists and turns? Like? Why aren't they
you know, what are they? What are they doing waltzing around the ring
like this? Jesus Christ? Why is wrestling fake? Because real is boring,
at least in terms of wrestling as it existed at the turn of the
century. Can you imagine sitting through a two and a half hour match,
That's what I mean, Like, I don't even know how to fuck you?
People did that I don't understand why they even presented that in public.
Are you going there for the day? Are you are? Is there is
a is like a wrestling show? Like is it? Is it a whole
fucking day event? Like you start at ten am, you end at ten
pm. There's probably only two or three matches, Oh my god, but
at plus you know, every gentleman in there is in a fucking three piece
suit. Oh of course, so imagine the comfort level. Hot yeah,
wearing thick fucking round glasses, all right, and smoking a cigarette out of
a fucking cigarette holder. Oh my god, Oh Charles. Yes, of
course we're seeing the matches tonight. Yes, going to the Yes, we're
going to uh to the the Dreamland Rink. From what I understand, Romanovs
half Nelson is the talk of the industry. I'll tell you the Romanovs half
Nelson is the talk of San Francisco. Okay, that's that's the quote the
promoter submitted, but they did not print it. Guys, there is no
evidence that was the case. Has anyone can I ask, has anyone heard
from anybody living in town about this fucking what is that Nelson? Nelson?
Did anyone talks about a Nelson. Well, I'll tell you what, this
would hardly be the last time that uh. San Francisco is known for scissory.
Oh god. So the Roaring twenties they start off, and early on
Romanof drops his he was the Pacific Coast champion as the as the twenties began,
and he drops it early on too, toots Mont. Oh, there
was a giant in the industry right there. Yeap, he drops the title
of the Tutsmont. Then this was great. I thought this was fascinating.
In March of nineteen twenty two, the La Times had a big picture of
Romanov and underneath they called him the man's sit not fair. I got,
yeah, you did. They called him the man of a thousand holds?
Oh my god, did they they did? Oh? I love that shit
man called him the man of a thousand holds. Digitized newspaper archive era has
allowed has taken away so many claims to originality. It's yes, fun,
oh for sure, absolutely one key stroke. It's like, actually, how
can you say you were the first Yep, you can't. You can't when
in fucking nineteen twenty two the La Times is saying that about this fucking guy,
uh, And then he disappeared, They disappeared. It was reported that
the quote Wrestling Trust blackballed him for no apparent reason. But I do wonder
if that name thing came into play maybe you know that it kind of spread
around, I mean, did the maybe the name thing was a hit job
reflecting attention that is also oh, that's true, crated by the fact that
he wasn't allowed in the Yeah, because that was that was sort of the
beginning of wrestling becoming like this real fucking mafia situation where it was like people
consolidating power, right territories. I mean, of course the n w A
and the territorial era was was very mafia alike, but this was like just
the beginning the wild West. This is like the this is like when Vegas
first got developed, you know, right, oh yeah, yeah, this
cowboy hustler is carving out ground in this like legally ambiguous new terrain, and
you know, and force and violence and the threat of violence kind of you
know, dictates the rules of of of the of the jungle. Fucking uh
Bugsy you know, yeah, Bugsy McGraw absolutely, yea, Buzzy mcraw exactly,
so uh yeah, so he's kind of he kind of just disappears from
from wrestling in the in the twenties, uh for the most part. And
then uh, he did make a best worst list that by El Paso promoter
John Macintosh, and this was putted in the l Passo Old Posts. There
are some other fun tidbits in here about some familiar carnies and I'm gonna send
this one to you if you would be so kind. Sure would you like
me to read it? Yes? Okay, let's see here? Can I
zoom? I can save and then I can zoom with me? Yeah?
Mmm, okay, the best worst, I couldn't say the worst, the
best comment worst? So are these the best worst guys or the best guys
and worst guys? We'll find out, won't we. Starting his fifteenth season
as wrestling promoter and El Paso John Macintosh, If ever there was an Old
Passo name, great, couldn't be Guerrero Guerrero. They could be Juan Guerrero
today looked back and recalled the following events of his career. For what reason
we were there to document it. I don't think his best drawing card Mattie
Matsuda. Yes, we've talked about Mattie Matsuda before, who reigned as Supreme
on the Olpaso matt for seven years. So that's with sour cream. The
most scientific wrestler again, Mattie Matsuda. Who is Maddie? Was he in
a movie? I don't know. I don't think I've done matt I don't
think I've done him. I feel like this in the Lapsed Funk, now
that I'm in those early days of Dori, I think he wrestled. Think
Dori, you wrestled him? Or maybe no? No, Cal Farley wrestled
Mandy Mattsuda. Yeah, maybe that that might be the case. Yep.
The toughest wrestler ed Strangler Lewis, of course, the wrestler who showed the
most sportsmanship from a financial angle. I don't repeat that. They'll be handing
this one out at the Color Flower Alley this year and now the award for
wrestler who showed the most sportsmanship from a financial angle. Lewis, who refused
to take his guarantee when the house didn't measure up to expectation. Article talking
about the house. The wrestler who showed the most sportsmanship in the ring met
Suda, who lost a great punctuation here by the way, so run on
sentence. Matt Suda, who lost a lot of falls because he didn't want
to make the customers think he had won. Unfair. That means the best
showman Dutch Mantel as we talked about on the Laps Funk not that Dutch Mantel
of course. And Joe Perelli. The best match about between Joe Perelli and
Johnny Myers. The biggest crowd, the attendance at the Chris Jordan Matthew metsuita
about estimated at four thy five hundred, the largest house from a financial standpoint,
the gate which he puts in quotes at the John Spellman, Gus Sunnenberg,
bout Gus Sunnenberg at Big Time draw on the twenties. The best season
nineteen twenty six season, whatever that means, The longest far our season,
guy, is it? No, it's not never ends? Billy Romanoff,
Yeah ya Kwai Joe first of all lasted one hour twenty five minutes. The
longest match Chris Jordan Charlie Rentrop last nine pm until two Christ can you imagine
five hours? Smell they sleept well that night? Who would be there?
Who would be there, great question, you know, I want that's something
that hasn't been done, and I'm sure it's getting very tricky from a curfew
standpoint and everything. You know, every now and then guys in the indies
will push it to like ninety minutes, two hours, just to do something
legendary or do something noticeable. Who's got the balls? You know, like
the night before WrestleMania, Wrestling New weekend shows, to just have a match
that just keeps going till five in the morning. O, my god,
do it. See what happens. See if anyone's left, I will do
it. Yeah, Let'll tell you what have them. This is this is
what you should fucking this is what they should do. Okay, you have
a match and just it keeps going and going and going until there's one person
left and then you do the finish. Oh, one person left in the
crowd. Yeah, one person left in the crowd and then you do the
finish. So it could be like you could be like twelve hours, but
that's what you do amazing because it's I mean, where would the line be
Probably around an hour forty five? People will be like what the fuck is
this? And then two hours and thirty minutes. Everyone is lout panicking about
what to do. Do I leave? Do I leave this history in the
making? You know what I mean? Is it history in the making?
Or am I just fucking punishing myself? Well, nine pm to two am,
we at least have a match to refer to historically that it would be
hard to beat. What night? How many hours is that? That's five
hours? It's five hours, by the way, a five hour wrestling match.
It's all I'm saying. It's longer. It's fucking think about that.
That's that's like half of that's right of wrestleming. That's Wrestlmingia twenty right there,
that's all of WrestleMania twenty. Okay, sighting match Ernie Maddox, Mattie
Matsuda, Cortus match that instead of course Billy hallis Joe Perelli, Most Promising
young wrestler, Buck Jones, best dressed wrestler, Matsuda, Most gentlemanly wrestler
Ali Hassan by his own admission. Okay, I'm sure many it called themselves
the most gentlemanly. Why he's the one that gets the nod? I don't
know. Trickiest wrestler Matt Sudah Yaquie Joe. Second oldest wrestler who showed the
most stuff our good friend Night in the City. It's Stanislaus Sibisco and he's
considered the oldest wrestler in nineteen What nineteen, this is nineteen twenty two.
Oh my god, Well to show that showed the most stuff, Okay,
but still his oldest I know, yeah, wrestler to appear here, Wayne
big Mund. It is a huge, pretty big name. The wrestler who
showed the most intestinal fortitude, Henry Jones, who went through with about when
he was shot full of dope to ease the pain of a bad injury.
Sure, that's why you respect. The cockiest wrestler, Wildcat Pete, wrestler
who lost his head, easiest Billy hallis okay, most uncalled for incident cal
Farley cal Farley of cal Farley Boys, Ranch and Ammarella tossing a young opponent
into the orchestra pit. What the fuck is going on down there? So
there it is. Here's cal Farley crossing paths with Muddy Metsuda. Best hold
ever shown Matsuda's flying Mayor Ranch. Second best hold, Johnny Myer's double wrist
longe. Third best hold Yaqui Joe's flying toe hold. You're not flying very
far if you're holding someone's toes. Quickest fall cyclone Bill Flooden beating Metsuda in
the first fall of a match in less than a minute. Richest wrestler Jims.
Worst dressed wrestler Jim Londos. Best dressed wrestler Jim Luna. Worst injury
Hoggin Sick, who suffered a broken arm and collarbone in one match. Jeez,
good thing he didn't suffer a collar and elbow. Yeah for a long
time. Funniest incident, Well, it doesn't say we're in the arm,
So funniest incident Ali Hassen hitting Joe Perelli over the head with his cane and
spitting in his face. Yeah, that's pretty funny. Unluckiest wrestler Ernie Maddick
who fell into orchestra pit and was unconscious for two hours and then the doors
open to start the show. They didn't say if this is the person cal
Farley threw into the orchestra pit the context. Best jiu jitsu wrestler, whatever
that means, Yota Shima, Strongest wrestler Gus Calio best Greco roman rests Calio,
Coolest wrestler Billy Romanov, fastest wrestler Billy Trout, Billy Trout Sniffer and
his partner Hans Grouper. Biggest false Jim Yeah, we already did that joke
and their manager, Handsome Jim Tuna. Now you tell me what the fuck
this means. Biggest false alarm Jim Murdoch, who met Stanislaus Zizisky spelled by
the way z z y z s k. Maybe that's it. Maybe maybe
the false alarm is the is the smelling of the name. I mean,
what constitute's a false alarm in nineteen twenties pro wrestling? I mean the whole
thing is false an alarm? Is that a false finish? Maybe the biggest
false finish that best supporting actor role in a fucking dramatic pro wrestling match.
Most freakish looking wrestler Constantine roman Off, six feet tall and built like a
bean bowl. Most perfect built wrestler George Costanza, catt Scenarios. It says
an ugliest wrestler bowl Montana, What a lovely piece. Great whoever it was
set down to put that Constantine Romanoff built like a bean pole, got it
and ugliest fuck so hard as a rock because fucking it's fucking broadworst best Rock
Hard Best mid Match Erection was also one of us Best Boner an hour in
Best mid Match Erection. This author, I don't really know why he goes
through the matches to get hard, to have something to jerk off to it
right, not fork of this, all right? You get some fucking awful,
you know, crappy bleachers in this place, all right. And then
in the back, in the back row, there's one fucking guy with a
pad of paper in one hand, like on his knee, right, and
he's writing with that same hand, other hand fucking stroking his cock. Sure,
that's this guy, absolutely, And I still decade centuries known as centuries
really decades later failed to see the problem. That's right. I think that's
fine. I thought it was fine in the twenties. I think it's fine
in the two thousand. Well, we're in the we're in the it's a
century ago, you're right, Yeah, that's scary that were reading things from
a century ago. So uh. This is when he started making a transition
into film, and he started out, I don't think we've done this.
I mean We've talked about this a little bit, but I don't think we've
actually had a wrestler who has performed. And correct me if I'm wrong,
but I don't think we've had a wrestler who has performed in silent films.
I don't think so. I don't think so either. So he uh,
he became So his first movie was a short film called Among Those Present,
and he was paid a rate of seven dollars and fifty cents a day.
And this film would be the first time that he that Romanov worked on a
Harold Lloyd film. Do you know what the name Harold Lloyd? I don't.
He was a major silent film star and he considered by many to be
kind of the There's a documentary out there about him called Harold Lloyd the Third
Genius. So it's like, you've got chaplain, Uh what's his name?
Oh, my god, Buster Keaton. And then this guy Harold Lloyd al
Jolson, Al Jolson, Harold Lloyd. Uh, if you if you look
like he's gonna he's a he's a pretty boy, you know, like great
smile, those fucking glasses, Like he's just you know, he's a heart
throb type. You know, he definitely was different than than than Chaplin or
Buster Keaton, but uh looks like Stephen Colbert. Sure, yeah, totally,
I can see that. Uh like like kind of the love child of
Stephen Colbert and like John Cusack. Yeah right right he Uh so you get
major film star, silent film star, and he's originally from where do you
think he's from? This guy? I have no idea Nebraska, just south
of Omaha where Romanov lived for a long time. I couldn't find anything concrete,
but I wouldn't doubt for a second that Harold Lloyd, you know,
didn't know who who Constantine Romanov was. Maybe it's Jack Myers, but you
know, like in Matt Day and Age for sure, very close to where
he would be doing all the matches. And Lloyd would end up hiring Romanov
for This is the Day too, where you know the silent movie stars also
would like direct and write like he was crazy. I think I talked about
the silent film stuff before. Sometime last year. I forget which movie,
but there's that movie. Uh, well the fuck was it called? That
came out last year? Babylon, Yeah, they came out last year.
That was a really, really great like it was such a neat movie to
see, and how it showed the silent film era transitioning into the talkie time,
and how some people just couldn't they couldn't cut it, you know because
once you heard their voices, like, you know, you don't want to
you know, you don't want to hear them. But yeah, so he
was Harold Lloyd hired him five different films and one of them was Kid Brother,
and this name of the movie, the Kid Brother, and he gave
Romanov his biggest part, no surprise, He's the heavy in the film,
so like the big bad guy, and they would have a cinematic brawl at
the climax of the film, and it proved to be a high point in
the movie with This is a quote from critics. Lloyd's stirring fight with Constantine
Romanoff. The Heavy, who will be recalled as one of America's foremost heavyweight
wrestlers, is one of the classics of the screen and promises thrills to even
the most blase audience. Would you like to see the fight? Yes,
all right, I will share my screen and this is from you. This
is the Kid Brother, Kid Brother. Okay, I don't know why in
the silent film era, they thought it was a good idea to produce these
movie posters where, of course the actors are in black and white, but
they put this rouge on their cheeks. I know, it's so weird,
right, horrifying, it is, it really is. Silent film actors freaked
me out. Man, Ye're so scary to me. Oh because they have
Yeah, they have so much makeup, so much makeup, and it's very
disturbing. No questquestion, all right, uh you have my uh my screen.
That would be a negative, so negative. Brother, it's going on
here, dude, stop sharing, let me share you. Oh now you
got it? After I stop sharing it back yet? All right, there
we go, you got it? Yes, okay, here we go.
See Romanov playing san DONI you see that in the cast. I added that
I included that here. So Romanov is going to be fighting here. Yeah,
he and he and Harold. There's Harold the guy there is. Yeah.
Yeah, let's try. It's done a little bit. Poking his head
up, pervert. Brother, waste luck, german, superlay look at me
fucking carrying him down. It's amazing, great quality. Yeah, I could
definitely, man. Lloyd took a good bump there the goozle throw around again.
I guess. I guess he told look at that creepy motherfucker. He
kind of looks like it was like count Orlock. It really does. He's
German after all, Like just like I guess, uh, he told fucking
waffles him right there, right drops Lloyd. Lloyd told Romanov to just fucking
go for it, and he is. Yeah. Amerlock tosses him against the
wall, grabs a fucking about pipes like a pipe of some sort of scary
looking guy dunks him off the head. You knows, no cells and again
no cell It's like, what the fuck is going on? Brother? There
was a metal piece covering his head. There was something over his head that
was dent in the steel. Huh. Oh, he's got an axe.
He kind of an ash Lloyd and missus Lloyd has the axe, cuts something
down, It falls on Robin off. It bumps into some water. Hell
help, I can't swim. The title card says, h good dad,
Lloyd's gonna save his life. No, he wants to kill him. Maybe
not yeah, because to drag him into this into the dream. Uh huh.
Whoa nice bump. That's a good bump. A Constantine is. He
rolls a barrel in his leg and Terry Funk should have brone up in the
Silent film Marry he'd got a ton of work. Can you doing this?
Oh for sure, this guy's gonna Harold Boyd's gonna do a step over to
that's a Nebraska boy double right there. That's two points you had to kickoff
like how you kind of occurred like a lot rumbing off. Who head over
here takes the rear mount for naked Boyd comes up the string is like a
boxer and a head. The fisticus here. This is incredible. It's a
really good fight. Boy throws some big ones are huh. Romano fends up
in a rolling chair and Harold Goloid is taking for the ride right back into
the drink splutters. It's just the pool that opened up under the high School's
amazing. Oh man, Lloyd and Constantine Romanov hustling in the water. They
both go under and we fade the black. That's right, I take it
Lloyd doesn't die at that point in the it continues. That's so fun.
I love that's like that Jim Jim Cagney judo match you show. Oh yeah,
Oh yeah, that was amazing. That was really amazing. But yeah,
that's so that's like, you know, that's what he's doing in the
movies. It's really great. That's great, and I can see, man,
he's got he's got that early nineteen hundreds pro wrestler, like, yeah,
menace to him. You know, they look for people that almost they
could they're wrestlers, but they also look like they could be in the freak
show right behind the curtain. I'm gonna read. This is what the Globe
said, Boston Globes. Is this when the quote when the movies want to
face at the window that will chill the audience's heart, they call on Constantine
Romanov, whose specialty is horror mugging. And it's amazing that he has this
cameo and it's a wonderful life that leverages none of those things. He's just
sitting here. M h. Well, it's kind of towards the end,
you know, towards the end of the career. Yeah, so he you
know, he booked tunn of rolls and a lot of uncredited ones. But
that's back in the day. You know. You know, even if you
get like you wouldn't always get credited in movies because they didn't list a thousand
people that they do nowadays. Wasn't the rule, right, And so according
to IMDb, he's got one hundred and thirty seven movies that he did between
between nine and that's not that's not a long time. He only performed from
nineteen twenty whatever to like barely nineteen fifty. See a Mazurki Award winner.
I couldn't No, I didn't nothing of that was in there. I was
kind of disappointed. Actually, I don't think he ever got anything. I
couldn't generate. That's a generation though we're talking about. That's fair. Yeah,
but he he well, and you know what he would have been when
was that formed? The Cauliflower Ally good question, you see, because I
think the Lower Alley Club was formed in nineteen sixty five by microphone. Oh
no, shit, Well, and he should have been in it. He
should have gotten something because he was alive until sixty nine. But yeah,
nonetheless it did not Uh, it did not happen. I couldn't find him
on the on the on the Cauliflower Alley website. Again, most of the
stuff that there's very little out there. The only I can only find like
a German version of of one of the wrestling data sites. Yeah, that
had information on him, like you know, he's not on like Cage Match
or right the other wrestling data ones. But there was like a German version
of one, and that had some a little bit of information, but not
much. So he he managed to survive into the Taki era obviously if he's
going to It's Wonderful Life, and there was, but there was one specific
one towards the end of his career, right before actually just before It's a
Wonderful Life, and it was Anna and the King of Siam, and he
got some press from that during the shooting of it. This is the Winston
Salem Journal, January twenty first, nineteen forty six. An ex wrestler who's
burned, hanged, shot, and mauled countless movie queens in his time went
to work with a bamboo whip on Linda Darnell's beautiful naked back. It was
enough to make you wonder why little girls want to be movie stars. The
luscious miss Darnell, who looks better in less than anybody we know, weighs
one hundred and nineteen well placed pounds. This has got this article's got me
too written all over it. I'll say our wrestler's name is Constantine Romanoff.
He tips the scales at well over two hundred. What's more, it was
a two to one battle. Romanov called Joe Garcio, ex Pride of the
Merchant Marine, who packs two hundred and twenty five pounds, to help him.
Miss Darnell was on her own. Between them, they really counted her
out. Romanov and Garcio had been hand picked as Siamese executioners by director John
Cromwell for Anna and the King of Siam. Came the day for the beating,
and the two bone crushers showed up wearing silk pantaloons and grins. They
are men who enjoy their work, ha, says Romanov, eyeing Miss Darnell's
bandana and sarong. When they wants a hang, mansay, always pick me.
I does a neat job. He did a lot of jobs, actually,
according to he should for practice. He's burned Corene Griffith on the hot
seat, hanged Zazu Pits, chopped Greta Nissen's head off, lined up Anna
Nagle before the firing squad helped Bob Ntgomery chop off ahead or two and showed
Normous Shearer the fine art of rolling heads during the French Revolution. I get
about five hundred dollars ahead, so that's about as much as that the Pierre
Pont guy gets in England. He pounded his gleaming stomach muscles to prove he
keeps in shape. To kill the glamour girls. As per the script,
Romanov and Garcia dragged Miss Darnell into a prison cell. It was cold and
wet, and the walls were crawling with fungi and moss. Yes, sounds
like a tag team fung guy and moss. The idea was to chain her
to the floor and beat her with bamboo cudgels. A makeup man dashed in
and sprayed her with movie sweat. Another expert watered the floor. The sound
stage got colder and colder, and Miss Darnell's middrift shivered and got goose pimples.
As the wrestlers dragged her in, she struggled, also per the script.
Then she slipped out of their grip. Not script. They tried it
again. Miss Darnell wiggled some more. It's a feat, Romanov complained,
as she got away again. These dames are slippery as that guy who tossed
me in the garden. Yes, in the garden is the French. French
to the garden. These dames are slip rays that that guy who's toss me
in the garden. Fuck it yeah, also tossing him in the garden,
farmer Burns, get your ash over here, myers Adam in the garden.
Well, the garden is capitalized, so that might be it. So he
and Garcia went into a huddle to decide whether it would take a hammer hold
or a power crusher to subdue subdue the curvesome wench Yes, Linda Darnell called
a curvesome wench Wow. They decided a hammer hold ought to do it,
So Cromwell started the cameras again. Romanov dragged her in by the head with
a power law under her jaw. He threw her to the ground. Next
came the beating. Romanov gave it as all, and Miss Darnell's squeals weren't
all acting. This is nothing, he said. Later next week, I
got burned the dam. It's a steak. They pipe and gas from me,
and flames shut up all around her. Miss Darnell was too black and
blue to say much. If it isn't one thing, she said, it's
another. So far I've been hanged, knifed and tortured and I get burned.
It's like we say, it makes you wonder, Yes. And then
one of his final roles was an uncredited link and you'll miss it moment as
a bar patron in Martini's bar. And it's a wonderful life. He had
roles in three more films and rolls every night at dinner as well. I've
been. I didn't even bother because I thought it was just too easy,
and I really thought you would just blow by it, like enough time to
pun every single time. This is a lot of right over there. But
you did it. I love it. Oh god. Uh. And then,
as far as I can tell, he disappeared from public life. There's
not even an O bit when he died. Rolls do many rolls, not
enough time? And like I I, I looked long and hard for any
evidence of him dying. I know that his, yes, his. I
found a picture of his gravestone and it's definitely him, his wife underneath and
stuff. So like I got it. But no O bit, nothing,
no death certis that celebrated not remember nothing, nothing at all, like not
even not even like under his full regular name, Like, hey, this
guy in our in our LA community died, right, nothing, just very
weird. But if you hadn't found the graveside, I would say, well,
are you're still alive? I might, I might think so. But
you know, it definitely was put up by family, Like there's a website
that has information that's definitely put up by somebody who knows him. Yeah,
and yeah, he died February eighth, nineteen sixty nine, although there are
some places that say he was born later and then died later, like in
nineteen seventy seven, but it's not definitely not true. Well, he at
least I couldn't find him dying later, but that would have made him like
ninety something. I know for a fact, as we know, we saw
the information he was born eighteen eighty one, so we got that. But
yeah, what can happen a lot of times, you know, And it's
it's the story of American immigration is there's miscommunication when it comes to filling out
those initial forms coming off the boat, and just because it's written down somewhere,
it doesn't mean it's true either. And sometimes you know, people would
lie about their age, not official frightens Right wrestlers were notorious for that.
I mean Meltzer's maybe he's got like a hang up on guys who, like
he doesn't believe are as old as everyone thinks they were and thinks they're older.
And if there's ever like a conflicting record about their actual birthday, it's
it's a it's something that's always mentioned, but you couldn't line in your naturalization
papers, right, I don't know, I have no idea. I mean,
I guess, I mean, what what what method would the United States
government have to verify that you were actually born on that date? Google?
Yeah, exactly. They wouldn't know. Yeah, I guess it's true.
Germany and look up your fucking birth records. They don't want that, eras
they don't want fucking you know, Germans coming over like illegally. That's where
people you know, got names switched up. You know, that's you misunderstand
what they mean by last name, and all of a sudden, your whole
family is a different last name than it had in the old country. Yep,
it's very true. So you know, I had to make a really
tough call here I just I just did not have time to put together stuff
on Jimmy Stewart. It was That's fine, it was a it was a
tough tough call to make. But there is any of any of his other
movies might give you a chance. There might be, I'm sure. I
think there are a couple of things that I can I can probably give Jimmy
Stewart another look at sometime. But for this call to the that's the call
to the solar. Yes, give boss a chance to do Jimmy Stewart by
finding a wrestler and one of his other incredible get me, get me a
wrestler and a Jimmy Stewart movie with a lesser director, because this is not
really the reason there's no room for differ Stewart is because the giants fucking swinging
dick that is Frank Capra right and and there, and mainly because there's so
much contradicting information. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. How
much do you know about the contradicting information? What books have you read on
Frank Capra? And I only know about him through this movie? So okay,
all right, So there there's a lot of I mean, you know,
honestly, in many ways. I would say that Frank Capra's is a
wrestler Carney, A total Carney, total fucking Carney. You know. He
he found something that he you know, he found elements of his life that
he liked and that he would later on when his star had fallen, he
would make those elements. He would pipe them up a little bit, yeah,
embellish and kind of and start dropping off other information and nact, Mike
didn't exist, almost like every wrestler when you look at their very first tune
interview compared to their last one, Yeah, exactly. Frank Capra was born
Francesco Rosario Crop on May eighteenth, eighteen ninety seven in the Beast Secine no
Cecily, Italy. I want you to know when I was doing that,
I was moving my hand, my left hand. I was doing all right.
I was definitely doing it like I'm a fucking, you know, stereotypical
Italian motherfucker. He So, he grew up in a poor village and admittedly
miserable. He said that the following no joke. This is a quote from
him in his autobiography, which is called a Name above the title quote.
I hated being poor. I'm sorry. I hated being poor, hated being
a peasant. My family couldn't read her write. I wanted out a quick
out. That's how he opens his fucking autobiography. In eighteen ninety eight,
his elder brother Benedetto, Benedetto Ben you know, you know, you know,
yeah, you know Caprice family. You know they had they had the
braujol for Christmas. Hey, he's gonna have to make of the brasol for
Christmas. It's happened in this year? Is it happened? Probably why you're
listening to this exactly, it's being devoured. I love it. Man.
So his elder brother, Benedette, though, had gone missing while hurting sheep,
And uh was that h r D or h rt hg r D like
the promote like the the executive vice president of dost hurting sheet, Yes,
titles hurting sheep maybe giving them fucking awful gimmicks, that's what it was called.
Now, the ding dongs and the sheet. So but five years later,
so think about it. The five years happened. So from eighteen ninety
eight to nineteen o three, they think that this brother Benedetto is dead.
But in nineteen o three, a letter arrives in their town saying that Ben
is alive and living in Los Angeles and he ain't coming back to Italy.
So the Capra family they pack up and they leave for America to achieve the
the what I think you could call capra Esque American dream. Yes, right,
here's how Capra described his journey. This is actually from one of his
biographies, which is a very interesting book. It's called Frank Capra The Catastrophe
of Success Okay by Joseph McBride. He told Joseph of Pride this quote,
you're all together. You have no privacy. You have a cot. Very
few people have trunks or anything that take up space. They have just what
they can carry in their hands or in a bag. Nobody takes their clothes
off. There's no ventilation, and it stinks like hell. They're all miserable.
It's the most degrading place you could ever be. The people who owned
the boat made a lot of money on this. They just pile a lot
of people in there. The boat keeps getting filled and we get nothing.
Oh, it was awful. It seemed to be always storming, raining like
hell, and very windy, with these big, long, rolling Atlantic waves.
Everybody was sick, vomiting. God, they were sick. On the
poor kids. They were always crying. My father was the worst of the
bunch. It was vomiting all the time. I don't know if he was
more delicate than my mother, but he was more aware of blood and people's
sickness. She couldn't be there were people to feed down there. She got
our meals by walking up an iron ladder with a tray. She came back.
She came back with this tray down the iron ladder, hoping she could
make it. Those stairs were straight up. There were six of us,
and my mother was the only one of our family who would go up in
a storm. I was two days in the hospital. On the boat,
I could I remember. I could see out of a porthole. I could
see the water down below. I didn't know where the hell we were going.
Well, it was all it was was pain and trouble. Let's fucking
go. All it was was pain and trouble. Pain, Pam, Yes,
that's a wonderful life. As far as I was concerned. If we
stayed where we were, I would have been much happier. In his autobiography,
he continues, thirteen days of stenchion, misery, and steerage. Two
more days of panic and pandemonium at Ellis Island. Then eight more days of
cramped, itchy hardship and an overcrowded share car, crying to sleep in each
other's laps, eating only bread and fruit Papa brought at train stops or bought
it train stops, And finally, finally, after twenty three days without a
bath or change of clothes, our dirt, hollow eyed immigrant family embraced the
waiting ben at the SP station in Los Angeles. Papa and Mama kissed the
ground and wept with joy. I cried too, but not with joy.
I cried because we were poor and ignorant. That's tired. Yes, they
would settle in what Kapra called an Italian ghetto, in what his present day
Lincoln Heights in Los Angeles, and he wanted out. He very much wanted
more. And this is I'm going to play an interview or a clip from
an interview of Capra that he did in nineteen seventy seven with Brian Lenihan.
I did want an education. I was ashamed by parents because they couldn't read
or write, and I wanted to get out of that. Get know,
you know, ghettos. We think of ghettos as terrible places to live in,
but there are people who prefer prefer living in ghettos in the other place
because they live with their own kind, They live with people they know,
and they live with problems that they all have. But they always complain,
always complaining about something, people in ghettos. So for me, it was
a it was a wonderful thing to get out of a ghetto and that and
discover America and discover uh uh, discover the American who who never lived in
ghettos and who never wanted to live that way, and who was uh independent
in his own right, and and who wasn't afraid uh uh uh, and
who feared nothing, and who went about his business and did his own work
and uh th this this is where my love for Americans started is after I
saw them. Uh I I after w when I was about twenty two,
twenty twenty four, when I didn't have didn't have a job, I couldn't
find a job of any kind. And Noreena did a lot of running around
in Utah on Oregon in Let, California and met the farmers, the barbers,
the booker players, and and just fell in love with Americans because of
their wonderful independence. Very nice. Huh yeah, go bat look at the
American dream right heart felt exactly so sorry. You know when I got one
of those fucking texts coming in. It's been a long time. How have
you been brother? Are you mister Jason? This is esther Oh here we
go, Jason Hervey. Do you talking to Jason Hervey. It's indeed a
wonderful life. Indeed, he's the Lapsed Fan Wrestling podcast with Jack and Carnaco
and Jpi Soro. It's a lapsed fan wrestling podcast. So he wanted an
education. That was kind of the main thing for him is getting an education.
So he attended the Manual Arts High School in East LA and he claims
he makes a claim that he left school early to go to college at the
Throop College of Technology. This is now the California Institute of Technology, but
at the time it was called the Throop College of Technology, and the the
school's motto at the time the college that prepares men for modern life. Wow,
that's that's a that's a short order. That's that that that's not lofty
at all, not giving you a you know, not making you I'm making
a lot of promises up there, right, you know, not nicely achievable,
right, yeah, easy, you know, no, no real expectations.
Know, you put what you you get out of it, what you
put into it. Right. So now he was hesitant to attend Throup because
it lacked the prestige of MIT or the University of Chicago. And you know,
this is kind of some of the vanity that maybe we we haven't necessarily
seen in the public Frank Capra. But now for the first time, for
real, here we're going to turn into Frank Capra. The catastrophe, the
catastrophe, the catastrophe, I want to say, the catastrophe of success.
Any hesitancy on Capra's part vanished when three boys ahead of him at Manual,
Harold Harris, Reginald Cole's and Clarence Burke, enrolled it through. They were
among the first of many Manual students who would attend the Pasadena School. Inspired
by their high school teachers, Eva Farnham and Isabelle Wilson. Capra was particularly
impressed two men such as Harris and Cole's, men from upper middle class families,
whom Capra thought of with considerable exaggeration, as quote rich would choose Throop
over Berkeley, Stanford or Mit. And if Berick, an amiable but plotting
fellow who worked with Capra as a janitor at Manual Arts, could get into
Throop, Capra knew he would not own he would not be the only social
quote reject there, but still it would not be easy. Tuition was two
hundred and fifty dollars a year, not exorbitant, but yet a considerable sum
in those days for a young man from a background such as Caprace. In
his autobiography, Kapra wrote that he finished Manual half a year ahead of schedule
and entered Throop in February nineteen fifteen. You know, hm, you know
who else finished Manual and entered Throup. Forget it. I can't fucking say
it. Jim Barnett. I did hear that as well, But the records
show that he spent the full year, the full four years at Manual,
graduating on schedule with the rest of his class on January twenty seventh, nineteen
Wait a minute, June twenty seventh, nineteen fifteen, and matriculated at Troup
on September eighteenth, nineteen fifteen, Capra claimed that to finance his first year
through he delayed his arrival at college to spend six months working in a back
breaking job at the Western Pipe and Steel Company owned by Jim Barnett too next
door to his home, especially the steel part steel if you ask Goalie well,
and laying pipe too, with all the the oh, I got that
one, I got that one on Albion Street. But after hearing that account,
Tony Capra It's Frank's brother angrily insisted that he was the one who worked
there. Frank Capra may have rewritten the history of that period in order to
conceal another job he did not want to acknowledge, but his account of his
college years also conceals the fact that his family provided him with financial support to
attend college. The Capra myth was that he did it all by himself.
Let's fucking go, and his claim in his autobiography that he never received a
penny from his mother while attending college, but instead gave her ninety dollars ninety
percent of his dollars a month for much of that time outraged family members.
Wow, who knew the true story? I mean, that's the thing with
falling in love with America. Oh yes, a self made American is.
Oh yes, you think it's a thing. And you have to lie about
your own background in sech fuciences to position yourself as of that mythos. Think
about think about the beginning of the Godfather. Remember the beginning, the very
beginning of Godfather. I believe in America. Exactly what do you believe?
Exactly what do you believe? I believe that I have to tell myself a
story about starting in a disadvantaged position and now being surrounded by opulence and doing
it in a way that's respectable as opposed to borderline and legal, if not
outright, that's right. Despite his mother's previous opposition to his schooling, once
she realized he could not be deterred from his ambition, she helped him accomplish
it. Sarida and me Luigia and even Tone and gave Frank money all through
his college years to supplement his jobs and his financial aid from through Frank,
you're killing my gimmick, Frank, Yep, what's going on? Frank?
During his so there were travelers checks. Frank, you have cash. Cravelry's
changing. Horrible, horrible, just horrible. During a sophomore year in college.
His father died in a this is tragic, doesn't even put it into
words. It's a horrific, just god awful machinery accident. So they they
lived on a ranch and they they had orchards, and there was a pump.
There was like a pump, a machine pump that ir that irrigated the
you know, the the orchards and stuff, and it you need to put
oil in it to get it going and stuff. And presumably this was presumed
that no one was with him when this happened, but presumably he was there.
He was filling the pump with oil, and he was wearing a long
coat and like a wind, a gust of wind flew in, came in,
and the coat got caught in the gears of the machine and it pulled
him, the father, into it, and he got torn in half.
Yep, that's right. The that's that's his American dream. That's right.
He believed in America. Wow, Wow, Benedetto. He found him torn
in half with want the like the the hit the top half and the lower
half like facing different directions and just ripped in half, blood everywhere, and
uh, you know, and he's Frank's in college hearing about this, and
you know it was a very very I mean, like anything like you can
imagine, that's a very that would that's greatly affects you as an individual early
on in your life. And that's just fucking absolutely awful. Yeah. He
uh, he studied, Uh, he's you know, he studied chemical engineering.
Did Capra did not study film. He actually wanted to go into like
a technical yeah background, and uh that's what he that's what he really wanted
to do and supposedly anyway, so he graduates from Throop and then he served
in the army during World War One. He was a second lieutenant but then
he never he didn't see any kind of action and he was medically discharged because
he contracted the Spanish flu. So he was sent home, like to his
home home, and in nineteen twenty he was naturalized. And ironically, despite
his college education and being the only one by the way, he's the only
one in his family who had a college degree, yet Copra was the only
one in his family who remained chronically unemployeed. Wow what abroad? Yeah,
it totally is. So he decided to move to San Francisco to find work
and it was there that everything changed. Frank Capri, you had a rather
unusual start in the movie business. Can you tell me how it came about?
Uh? Well, I rather backed in the movies. I had no
idea of UH that I would UH had no preparation for them, and I
they had no theatrical experience. Whatever I'm I graduated as a chemical I graduated
as a chemical engineer from a technical school, California Institute of Technology. UH.
The First World War that I that I went out to see if I
could find a job and it was impossible there or that the same same thing
after every war. There was no no words, especially for technical people.
So I was stuck. And I did a great many things that I to
make a living of some kind. And and UH. I was in San
Francisco in time, and I saw an ad in the paper or or or
write up in the paper that there were somebody was starting a new motion picture
company at Golden Gate Park to make uh some kind of films. I didn't
know what they were talking about, really, but something new was starting,
and I I did. I. I was locked out of my hotel room
and I couldn't get into my clothes, but I had to do something cause
you mean, because he couldn't pay. I couldn't pay, that's right,
and uh so I'm pretty desperate. So I thought he'd go out to this
uh. And I was a kind of a cocky kid, and I thought
I could make my way around. So I went out to see this man
and I find him uh uh an old Shakespearean actor there who was who?
Who was gonna do these things? And uh and I introduced myself as Frank
Capra from Hollywood, which was true. I my home was Los Angeles.
I had never been into a studio, but I uh fad over. I
mean when I mentioned Hollywood, and he opened the doors and he brought me
into that and I so I I didn't disabuse his mind, and uh so
I started really helping him make this first picture of his and I gradually I
took over from him because it was the blind leading the blind. But I
was younger, you see, and so uh the younger blind man that so
I took over and made this first picture for him. And that was my
and I knew right away when the first time I peeked through the eye piece
of that camera and saw these actors and these bums that I had uh L
rounded up from the waterfront. I got such a thrill that I still get
the same sort of over the time I I look through the eye piece of
a camera and that's with my stock. I know I've found something. The
bug had really bit you in another way, it bit me all over.
I was just at all sores, unbelievable. It's from a nineteen seventy four
interview with a BBC. This guy's face looks like you should sound like Bruto,
But I'm a little I know it's totally right, totally does Hi.
I'm I'm Frank camera. I'm just gonna think to stop. Frank. I'm
just gonna sit here and I'm going to walk in circles and just imagine that.
I'm you know, in a in a ferry line. How do you
sit there and walk in circles. That's that's the beauty of the imagination.
You know, That's a beauty of America. It's the beauty of America.
That's that's the kind of thing that that's that's really the American dream right there,
is that you can you can sit and walk in circles at the same
time. I see no problem with that. I'm glad you don't, so,
uh, Frank, just to just to clarify, So, you had
no prior film experience before this San Francisco thing, right, that's what you're
saying. You had no uh, you no prior experience. You just kind
of went in there and set us from Hollywood and said you're from Hollywood.
And that's so class like this like apocryphal tale that oh yeah, you know,
it's so catchy, like you hear that once, you don't forget it.
And he knows that, yes, and so he says that even though
he knows it's a misrepresentation. So according to Joseph McBride, the guy who
wrote the catastroph of Success, by the way, there's a great thing in
there that he says he told like he he told Frank Capra that he was
writing this and he knew it was an unauthorized biography. Okay, Capra still
spoke with him, and Capro still would sit there and they would have conversations.
He'd favor him, but he would also like whenever, whenever McBride would
offer evidence, there would be time when the truth would come out. Love
it. Yeah, So according to McBride, when lot of times, by
the way, you do that. Trump used to do that a lot too.
People would be writing adversarial books about him and he'd give them an interview
so that you can turn around on the other end and say, I took
you know, I told him all this stuff and he ignored it. Yeah.
No, when when they When When when mc brida actually gave Evan like
provided real evidence and stuff. Yeah, showing it and he would like,
you know, nothing can happen all the time, but certainly times like he
was very upfront and that, you know, with all this information and stuff.
And I guess both both Capra and Capra Junior were very friendly about it
all and very you know, so I according to McBride once so Capra released
his autobiography in nineteen seventy one. Okay, starting then is when he began
neglecting to mention or at least maybe for lack of a better word, concealing
previous film work he had done before the San Francisco story, because he wanted
to promote this idea of it. I didn't have any training. I didn't
I didn't need training orsembly blocks. I'm just native technical school. I went
to a technical school, and I just happened to go up there and answer
this ad. I needed money, and look at that I became. I
just I fell out of that. I was gifted, naturally gifted. Here's
this is him talking about having I think it's about talking about no experience with
it all. Yeah, I listen to him here, which directors would Oh,
I know what it is? This is what it is. This is
him. He's asked this interview about any directors who influenced him. Listen to
what he says. You say, have influenced you most. I don't think
any director does. Every influenced me. You see, I started out in
a very small place called Columbia Pictures, and I was not an I didn't
visit a major studio until way late in life. I didn't meet any of
the big people at all. So I was my own teacher and my own
student. I was my own teacher, my own student. Well, McBride
found contrary evidence, and you know what, so did I. I found
a newspaper nineteen nineteen, a good year before the story that you know,
supposed to the San Francisco story happened in nineteen twenty. I had I found
a newspaper with a print ad for the Tri State Motion Picture Company and Reno,
Nevada, and Frank R. Capra is listed as the secretary and treasurer
of this motion picture production coming. That's gotta be somebody else, of course,
must be, right, tons of you got a lot of time when
your hands samy, dude, I didn't. It makes one wonder if you
don't have anything better to do than to look into me all day? Well,
I mean, I mean, you know, it's like you're doing a
whole thing about me. I don't understand, like you know what what exactly
why? Here? Yeah? No, I guess what. Guess what,
Frank there are lots of evidence what I'm doing a whole thing about you.
That's exactly right, right. I also so there there was a quorin to
McBride. He also well before any of the San Francisco stuff, that he
was a movie extra as well, all right. I also found an article
from nineteen twenty three afterwards stating that Capra was previously a member of the technical
staff of D. W. Griffith, who was a huge director. Right,
No technical he was he was doing technically, attend I wasn't influenced by
him at all. No, of course, not why would you be because
you're Americana. Well, to acknowledge influence is to acknowledge that he would have
had the means and the resources and the the situation in life to see a
lot of movies, of course, and to soak it in. And he's
got a story where that wasn't really it doesn't really comport. You know,
I had time to study these great tours when he was pinching pennies and not
even interested in Hollywood. Frank, why do you get a lie, Frank?
Why you and your story? Enough? Frank, Frank, what the
fuck is going on? That's what I want to know, all right,
you motherfucker. So time has come, as relapsed fan chronology to call Frank
Capra a motherfucker. Right, So, eventually he would work with Harry Cone,
who would be the guy who would eventually head up Columbia Pictures. It's
all about Columbia Pictures. That's really what I've come to terms with. It's
all about Columbia Pictures, all about Sony. Everything happened there. That's that's
the reality of it all. So eventually, you know, and then Capra
would become a director of Silent Films and did a lot with Cone and like
he was he was, like he was Harry Cohne's number one guy. Then
The Jazz Singer came out nineteen twenty seven, and the movie industry basically was
a deer in headlights with the Jazz Singer. Yeah, because nobody knew what
to fucking do about this, first hockey, first talkie peop. Some people
are like me, that's right, I'm sitting on tip top of the worm
rolling along. He has walk the ball. I saw. I ever tell
you that I saw. I think this was when we were in college.
I saw a I don't know if they still do this anymore, but it
was. It was a a you know, a tryout of a of a
show at the at the Colonial Theater for a Jolson and Al Jolson musical.
Really yep, it was awful that the show was. The show was absolutely
awful. Just yes, just a complete like just a complete ship show and
so corny and so oh stupid, you know, but that's what you get,
apparently when you want to do Al Jolson because he's a fucking joke.
This was some well you remember when I launched my FI top one hundred mission.
Oh yeah, I got to like number seventy, I remember what it
was. But anyway, the reason I was emboldened to watch the AFI's Top
one hundred in order, starting the number one hundred is because Netflix had just
come out, and you can get every DVD you could imagine until I got
to Jazz Singer, and I had a problem on my hands because it hadn't
come out on DVD yet. Oh good call. So I had to seek
out rare vintage videotape source in Boston, and I found on Hollywood Hollywood Video.
It was over on Cambridge Street, across from the hospital, and there
it was on VHS. Not the Neil Diamond one, right, it was
the original? Oh yeah, yeah, the original. Yeah. I think
the Neil Diamond one was on DV probably it probably was up before the original
one. Wow, you know what, I've never seen the Jazz Singer.
I yeah, I watched it for that purpose, but I couldn't tell you
much more about it than that ye little little ditty there. I can't imagine
it'd be something, you know, that that's easy to watch these days,
although there are still some silent movies that I find to be really fascinating.
But yeah, they're fascinating. But that doesn't mean they're enjoyable, right,
right. So, but there were a couple things about this. First of
all, there were very few people who were excited about this. Number one,
they thought it would be the end of the art of filmmaking. Some
people thought that Some people were unsure if this was a thing that was going
Could you imagine an era where you're like, I don't know if talking films
is a thing that's going to stick around. I think it's a fad.
Amazing, isn't it, you know, like it's such a weird I mean,
I know, I know a kind of change can can ignite those kinds
of feelings, but something that that helps make something more natural and realistic as
opposed to less just always is. It's such a weird thing to me.
It's not like three D. I mean, I guess three D technically makes
it more realistic or a I or or or I don't know, I'm trying
to think of something think of or I P I hop So, yeah,
but people were concerned, and so nobody knew if it was worthwhile to change
to make the stages on in their studio sound ready. But do you know
there was one person who thought it was absolutely a massive evolutionary breakthrough in the
business. Frank Capra, Yes, And he told h McBride Joseph McBride quote,
I wasn't at home in silent films. I thought it was a very
strange to stop and put a title on the screen and then come back to
the action. It was a very contrived and very mechanical way of doing things.
When I got to working with sound, I thought, my what a
wonderful tool has been added. I don't think I could have gone very far
in silent pictures, at least not as far as I did go with sound.
Frank, you made like a dozen, three dozen fucking silent films.
Wow, fucking idiot. The first movie he did, well, maybe not
three dozen, but that's one, two, three four, all right.
He didn't make as many as as I'm saying here, because Submarine Submarine was
kind of his first little dive into a movie with sound. And they so
they're in in this submarine and the submarine, you know, they get trapped
and the submarine sinks and stuff, and they this was kind of the introduction
for Columbia to sound. And there's a scene at the end of the film
where a diver has to travel four hundred feet in the water, down the
water to see if anyone's alive in the submarine, and when he finds the
sub and it's all done with miniatures and stuff, but when he finds a
sub there's a knocking from the inside that shows the cruise alive. And it's
just a sound. You don't see them knocking. You just see it from
the hero's perspective. And supposedly when the audiences who attended the film, when
they heard the knocking coming from inside the submarine, they went fucking bonkers,
like cheering and applouding and going completely nuts. It was a breakthrough moment.
So that was Colombia's like. Colombia is like, okay, I guess we're
gonna do sound, and so they're moving forward. I don't know if Submarine
was a full talkie or not. I'm not sure, but I know it
had this particular sound effect that really was huge and made a difference, and
it was sync sound and all that stuff. So so yeah, so that's
that's how Columbia decided to make it, uh, you know, make go
ahead with the with the with sound, pictures pictures with sound, and in
the nineteen thirties. Frank Capra is hitting that stride. Capra. He was
nominated for his first Oscars for Director and Picture as a producer for the nineteen
thirty three movie Lady for a Day. He didn't win either, And then
came It Happened one night. Have you seen it happen one night? No?
What a fucking movie is that? Right? Oh? Yeah, thank
you it is. It is one of the most influential movies in the history
of filmmaking, no question. It's also one of those circumstances that the stars
aligned, and most likely if you didn't have one of these elements, it
would nearly be as good as it is. But you had a great script,
you had a very confident and you know, cocky direct in Frank Capra,
and you had two megastars. You had Clark Gable and Claude Colbert and
everything just helped to make this fucking so, you know, it was a
It was the first screwball comedy. It was like kind of the first one
of the first kind of big mainstream sex comedies. Sure without like having a
lot of real sex in it, obviously because of the you know, the
codes and stuff at the time. There was so much, so much stuff
that it it broke round with and it was a it was a brilliant movie.
And uh, it's funny because Clark Gable was reluctant to do it.
He didn't really want to do it, but he was in trust. So
this is this is studio you know, we've talked about the studio system a
few times. So this is the time period where where uh uh, you
know, actors and directors and whatnot, they worked for the studios. They
weren't independent contractors. So Clark Gable was contracted to MGM, but MGM could
loan him out in exchange for something else. Well, they wanted, you
know, Capra wanted Clark Gable and Clark Gable was being a dick at MGM
because he wanted more money, and so MGM sent him to Colombia and Frank
Capra as a punishment. And here's Capra on that interview with the BBC talking
about h Clark Gable. I gathered Clark Gable wasn't too enthusiastic about shooting on
your first day on the set. He was not that Clark Clark Gabrael was
an MGM star and he had done something that had had put him in disfavor
with the with the boss off there, Louis Mayor. I think he wanted
more money, which was always put you into fit dis favorite and he was,
he was. He was being chastised. So he was sent down to
Colombia to loan the Columbia pictures for for because that was his way of sending
the people to Siberia. And believe me, Clark Gable didn't want to be
sending to Siberia. So he was a very first time he came down there
was he was dead, drunk, loaded, and he made it very apparently
didn't like to be to send to Siberia. But when we started working with
him, the fact the first couple of days he fell in love with his
thing and he really and then that to me, that was the real Clark
Gable comes and said drunk because he doesn't want to be there, but he
has to go. That's it, right, Clark Gable. Let's have we
touched him yet? We have not touched Clark Gable, Please God, please,
let's get gone with the wind under the cinemat or something or or it
happened when night I'd love to do. It happened one night Oh, that'd
be beautiful. Uh so the uh the film was also very famous for a
scene, not unlike uh no holds barred in a way, not for the
whole movie, but there's a scene where Gable and Colbert have to share a
bedroom. But it's during the era, you know, during it's a blanket
between them. That's right, they have a blanket exactly sheet separating them.
Again, this is the BBC interview where you're talking about that. There was
this very famous scene with a blanket hung between the beds called the Walls of
Jericho. And I remember at the time the post is coming out saying watch
the walls on you by the production code? Who said you can't have them
together in the same bed or was this pure inspiration? Well, we certainly
couldn't have them together in the same bed. We knew it, So there
was no use our brands and our intelligence to do things in a in an
indirect way and many times much better way. I think. I think his
watching her put her stockings on and then her underwear on, that thing was
much more sense, much more sexy than actually if they were in bed,
because you knew what was going on in his mind. Mmm. Uh it's
you know, he's actually like, it was his idea, say all these
things, and if you were allowed to have them kiss, you'd have done
it, of course. And in fact he wanted it, Colbert to do
more. He wanted her to get down a little bit dirtier. But you
know what, she wouldn't do it. That's all that, all the stuff
that he's talking about there, all her idea, all because she wouldn't go
as far as Capra wanted. Listen, I'm thinking, what if we just
show a little titty, right? Can we show a little bit of your
tit? No, And I understand the sensitivity about the cleavage, and I
respect the boundaries you're drawing. How about your pussy? Can you put that
on the screen? Can we do? Let me ask you something, and
I don't want to offend you in any way. What I think we should
do and what I'm I'm hoping what would agree to, is if we get
a close up of your pussy. I want to see the full stirrups like
the gynecologists. I want leg I want to spread eagle, just a tight
shot of the vulva, right, and we do with that place and we
get the hair and maybe maybe you, but Frank, I drive a Chrysler.
I don't have a vulva, and maybe we can get your fingers,
you know, spreading the whole a little bit, just thinking imagine it's like
he just like he just tells her, we just want a quick shot of
it. And then like he's rolling, he said, Darry, now I
want you to touch it. Now, spare with us here, Okay,
come on in here. We're gonna do a little bit of improvise and just
let's just go with it. Let's just see where we go with Let's see
what happens. Clark pulled down your pants. Yeah, get your cock out,
all right now only inserted in. She's not protesting. There's no movement.
Once once cameras rolling, she she doesn't stop. You know, that's
just that you gotta let it happen. She's a pro that's right, that's
right. And if we get a little bit of semen, that's okay.
I'm fine. Submarine and a lot of semen in that one, a lot
of semen in that and I'm okay having a little having a little bit of
semen. And it happened one night, because it's it's happening tonight, Frank
Harvey Weinstein, how are you tell me? How did you pull this whole
thing off? You know, I'm an artist, is what it is.
And when it comes to pulling things off, Harvey had referred to you,
when you know, when it comes to when it comes to getting off.
I I ask you what your what your strategy is, because I'm just a
I'm just a student. I'm at all, no question. All right,
Claudette. Well, if we can't show any any skin on camera, maybe
there's a bit of a compromise we could reach here. How about without cameras
rolling, we just go back to the hotel and make out. How about
here here he has nothing to do with the movie, just throwing this out
there. If you're not willing and listen, I understand. If you're not
comfortable, you know, showing your skin, showing showing your bare naked naked
body, showing your bosom, the whole thing, I understand. What about
as an alternative, you don't do it, You stay fully clothed the whole
movie, but after we wrap, to come back to my hotel room,
you show me at all and I get to touch it. Now we're getting
to the brass tacks. Now we're getting allowed to why he keeps making these
suggestions. All pretense is now set aside. Well what happened, and it's
you know, it's a bit of movie trivia that will live forever. After
all of this back and forth and negotiating over what level of news he was
appropriating the film and where the actors were willing to go after all of it,
all they ended up with, ironically, was just you know, a
split second of Clark Gable's balls and in frame, I'm sack. Listen,
you know she went away, she left for the day. I'm sorry,
I don't know what We're in a film? Instead, Clark, can we
just at least get your testicles? Could we just get that on film?
Please, love of God, just so we can say that we shot something
today. It's like the Dick and Fight Club that you see first floit seconds.
Okay, shoot him great? Look at that, right, Capra ladies
and gentlemen, you know, fucking Clark Gable would all would be all about
having his balls on film, no questions, no question balls of plenty.
So again we're going to turn to the catastrophe of success. There were some
revealing adolescent Hyjenks on the set. During the shooting of the Walls of Jericho's
scene, Colbert was in bed and Uncle Frank what hollered that he was going
to attack her. Joe Finocchio remembered, he literally is one letter away from
Pinocchio. I'm not gonna believe a word this guy says. He jumped on
her jokingly and rolled her over. So isn't that far from what we were
saying. When there was a delay in shooting of the scene, Colbert,
waiting on her side of the blanket, asked, what was wrong. Well,
there seems to be a slight problem here, Capra said, as she
came around the walls. Clark wants to know what he can be what can
be done about this? What his heart on? Yes, Cable lay on
his back under the cover, smirking with a large bulge rising from pipe well.
He had taken a prop potato masher and propped it under the blanket.
Colbert laughed, Ah, you guys, such moments were rare. Colbert fought
with Capra throughout the thirty six days of shooting. She admitted, Clark can
and I kept wondering what kind of reception this kind of picture actually get this
was right in the middle of the depression. People needed fantasy, They needed
a dream of splendor and glamour, and Hollywood gave it to them. And
here we were looking a little seady riding our bust. Colbert's combativeness made her
unpopular with the crew. Edward Burns found her quote bitchy and quote snooty.
Joe Walker, the consummate gentleman, called her quote stand offish and resented her
quote angry sulking. Gable, on the other hand, thoroughly enjoyed himself while
making it happen one night, and it showed in his performance. Quote.
You know, I think this wop's got some thing, he remarked to Colbert
about two weeks into the shooting. Wow a gentleman. Yeah, it would
be a huge success, massive success. One of the big reasons is because
again it is the depression, and so Cloud Colbert, it plays a like
a you know, she's like a princess type, like she's you know,
rich and well off, and Clark Gable is in Everyman, and so it
like leveled out the playing field a little bit between the classes, and so
it was very, very popular. Again, one of the first, if
not the first real screwball comedy, and it became the first film to win
the Big five Oscars, which are Screenplay, Actor, Actress, Director,
and Picture. Those are the Big five and it won all five. It
won all five. Holy shit, do you know how many films have done
that? One? Three? Three films? It Happened One Night? Yeah,
one Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Oh wow. And Silence of the
Lambs, that's correct, coming coming soon to Under the Cinema. Oh you
fucking don't even Here's another piece on the BBC interview. This is this is
Frank Capra talking about how he how winning these awards because again he's fairly young
in his career. You know, this is nineteen thirty four, so he
is thirty seven years old and he's winning Oscars and stuff. And yeah,
here he is kind of talking about how that affected him. The film It
Happened One Night won five Academy Awards. Did that kind of recognition make you
feel more secure in the industry or more anxious about your ability to live up
to your reputation? Those five awards nearly killed me. I mean, I
I D you know this. You shake the Oscar tree when you get the
five major awards? What are you gonna do for an encore? This was
my problem and I I g and I got it so early in my life,
you see. And uh and I really nothing. I could nothing.
I've read all kinds of things, but everything was seemed very trivial and uh
puerile. After that, I I I there was no how could I how
could I make another picture? And so I choked up and I I feigned
sickness not to make any more pictures. I just gonna gonna quit for a
while. And I was I was afraid, actually afraid to make another film.
Uh. This hits everybody. It's when you know, after you have
one big successful hit, the next picture is really a really a a problem.
And uh so I I feigned sickness. But on in feigning sickness,
I became sick and I was and I was really really about to die when
uh some uh a friend of mine brought in a very faceless little man who
came in and and said to me, mister Capper, you're a howard.
And I said, coward. I'm sick and needs to know you're a coward.
You know you were given certain gifts and you're not using them, and
Hitler was a his voice was rasping out of another room. Hitler being hitarly
heard constablt heighted, you know, and he said that man in there is
a what can you reach? How many can you reach? Ten twenty million?
But for maybe ten minutes, twenty minutes, you have been given a
gift to reach hundreds of millions, and for two hours and in the dark,
he's selling his poison. You've got other gifts to sell other things.
You're a coward, You're an offence to God, you an offence to humanity.
And he just got out in the left. So supposedly the accusation from
this anonymous little man were enough to get Capra out of bed and get back
to work. But I ask you, was there a little man? No,
didn't happen. Sounds like a total lie. There is nobody who can
confirm that there was a lot. Alarm bells went off big time on that
one. And it suggested through Joseph McBride that since Capra he does admit there
that he put himself into this state of illness and this kind of depression and
this this own self induced downward spiral almost suicidal too. By the way,
almost suicidal because of this, that the little man was actually a personification of
Capra himself. Oh god, pointing the finger at himself to get up and
get back to work, all right, whatever fucking carnif fuck, Oh,
ladies and gentlemen for him Americana, that's right, Yeah, he actually uh
he figured out America a lot quicker than we realized. Yeah, all right,
that's that's what he is. And guess what he'd win two more Best
Picture Oscars over the next fuck Best Director Oscars rather over the next five years.
Mister Deeds goes to town and You Can't Take It with You, which
also won Best Picture, and then Pearl Harbor. And five days later,
guess who quits his Hollywood career and joins the army. He fucking enlists Frank
Capra, though it might not have been just his desire to service country.
Apparently Capra's sister Anne was still an Italian citizen, and she didn't realize this.
She thought because she had the people that she'd married or whatever, that
she became a citizen. Not the case, and so she was trying to
become a naturalized citizen but only got her like submitted her paperwork in November of
nineteen forty one, and after Pearl Harbor happened, any pending naturalization was and
then the US went to war with Italy, and she's an Italian citizen,
so she's now an enemy alien. So just so happens that Frank Capra has
now joined the army after Pearl Harbor, and in August nineteen forty two,
Kapra writes a letter to the government and is able to pull the correct strings
in order to expedite his sister's naturalization. So yeah, there's no necessarily evidence
of that, but it does seem oddly coincidental that he's doing these things,
you know, and you know, and in his defense as an individual here,
he is also one of the few, you know, you get to
think pre Pearl Harbor, Frank Capra is an A list film director. Yes,
all right, he is at the top of his game, making award
winning box office hits. He's at his peak, and so it's is very
admirable that he would drop his career to service country in the war. But
he was forty four at the time, so he marrie forty four. Yeah,
so he's forty four, so he really couldn't serve like, you know,
he's not going to fucking be on the front lines holding the fucking rifle
and shooting Nazis and stuff. So he's brought into his commanding officer's office and
he's given a task that's more suited to Frank Capra. And this is from
an interview at the at the Washington State University, or at least it's from
the Washington State University archive anyway. And when I come inted went to his
office, he says, we soon have twelve million kids in the uniform,
the m n many of them I have never seen again. And what are
they gonna do? What are they gonna do when they get this stra terrible
disease of home sickness? And and he said, we'd have to give'em
some answers. Well, why they're in uniform? And he said, I
think k could be done with film, should be done with film. He
said, we better have the we if we haven't got the answers, we
haven't got a country. So, uh, this is the way it started.
And I thought went when I got out of his office, I went
into the nearest excuse me can and sat down and said, Jesus, that's
what the hell in my I don't know anything about nothing about documents. I've
never met a documentary in my life. I don't know what a duck a
documentary looks like. I've never I don't know anything about war and anything about
anything. Uh, and why do you give me this job? This job?
But I but you know, you do what you can do. I
I remember going to the god of documentaries at the time, was this this
Englishman need to remember him by John Greer, John Greerson. He happened to
be in Washington, and somebody says John Grierson, by the way, that's
a lie. He did director documentary Oh My God in nineteen twenty one in
San Francisco, covering the It was a short documentary, but it was about
the Italian naval cruiser Libya that was doing a world tour. I came into
San Francisco. So another lie, thank you, Frank. Well it was
everything about he invented documentaries. I never saw a documentary, what Frank,
I never saw is that what you said. I never saw a documentary.
That what he said, keep it going, Frank, I never saw anybody
that hadn't made when I thought could document here's where silly things that I guess
you never looked in the mirror, Rich Kooch's maid, you know. So
I teach a course on the documentary. Go ahead ahead, anyhow I got
I got finally got an audience with this mister Grierson, and he was very
hard to get to. And I went to him with a hat in hand,
and I said, mister Christen, I've been given a job to try
to tell our troops why they're in uniform? Uh, how do you make
a documentary? Litertened me, and he says and walked away, and I
said, my, you, son of a bitch, I'm going to show
you how to make a documentary. And he got to be mad. He
kept me so mad that I think that's what did the hot trick. The
seven y We Fight films were viewed by troops and civilian alike. One such
film portrayed the gallant and victorious defense of Britain by the Royal Air Force.
It shown in a time when the shattered with unbeaten British were the only people
fighting the Nazis. The film was called The Battle of Britain. I thought
of one thing, what the hell made me come into the army why what
am I doing here? While I'm doing what because I believe, I believe
these countries are going to take over the three countries and put over put into
there. But I didn't want to lose my freedom. For twenty eight days,
the Mapsies were to drop everything in the book on the city of London,
tons upon tongues of high explosives, delayed action, bombs that exploded days
later, torpedoes that sheared away whole building and underneath the wall in the air
the war of a Man in the street went off. I thought, well,
then if that's what that's what impressed me, then perhaps if I make
a series of films musing nothing but their film what it meant. I did
not have any studio, didn't I have telephone and a desk. There's no
I couldn't order a thousand people around. So I said, well, we'll
just take their films and and plan and show them to our kids and let
them see who they're fighting and what they're talking about and what their aims are.
And then brother, they photographed themselves. Those those those guys that struted
around the world. They had cameras following them every place, and we had
all kinds of films, these people saying what they were gonna do. For
some twenty or twenty five years, the je the Germans, and the Japanese
and the Italians had been sending newsreels to their own little bunch of eth ethnic
groups, to the Germans in New York, to the Japs in the in
San Francisco, to the Italians in Chicago. And then these films we found
them in warehouses and there was an enormous cash a twenty five years of newsreels,
their newsreels, and there there was their whole story beginning. Then Brittain
was refusing to couple up across the channel. They enraged, going to personal
command of the operations, and on September fifteenth, he sent the lot offer
into one of its greatest attacks. I got about forty Hollywood people helped me,
top Hollywood people that they came in and droves anything you wanted to.
And in that war, everybody wanted to get into it. It was in
the war that anybody wanted to miss. We had all kinds of people,
we had the top people, we had the john Ford's, all people in
all kinds of working. About forty people from Hollywood, and then we took
over a small studio in Hollywood and we made these films. Ever, having
made him a documentary, I didn't know that the documentary had to be dull.
I said, well, here's ten years, here's the stage. Here,
here are the greatest heroes and the greatest villains that the world is ever
produced, walking across the stage of the world. That's all you have to
sell this story. Dramatize these events and historic three dimensional battle took place inside
the area sixty miles long, thirty eighth flad and from five to six miles
high. Battle but there was very effective because we knew the Britons and had
we already cared for the Britons. They were our own friends, and when
we saw them suffer, we suffered more then, let's say, than the
Chinese, or than they are than the French princess. Uh so. Uh.
The the Battle of Britain was and then the Battle of Britain was more
photogenic. It was in the air. Uh. It was a tacks from
the air, bombed bombed out cities, burning cities. Uh, I said,
uh so it was uh really ah uh. Probably the most popular a
chief fan of these films was Mr. Ch Churchill. He called me into
his office uh ten Downing Street and he says, I wanna tell you that
this is the best. These are the best films, and I wanna make
it. I wanna show'em to all the British public and I wanna make
it a little uh uh something and to introduce them. But I said,
oh my goodness, and yeah he s he says, if you got you
got equipment, I just start. Don't worry, I'll get the equipment.
And he gave uh uh four minute speech before these things and call them the
best, best example, the best statement of our case. It wasn't just
in chance with these films and had the sack of the way they were presented.
He was really our biggest fan. And what are these films again?
What are they? These were? They're called the why We Fight series and
so what they were? So they were basically an answer to the German the
yeah right. But these were not intended to be propaganda. It was basically,
you know, it was why we're fighting these guys. You know,
it was trying to be more objective about it than trying to convince people of
the glorious you know right, the virtue of right and uh, it actually
this was it was very interesting, you know because by this point people recognized
Frank cap as being very big headed and cocky and you know, braggadocius or
braggadocio or whatever the fuck the word is. But you know, he talked
about that Churchill thing, and yes he did compliment Capra in private, but
Churchill never mentioned Capra by name in the public speech that he gave about it,
and he just kind of credited the American Army for that. And it
really it was an interesting side of Capra to see this because he didn't make
a big deal out of it. He kind of just did his job as
a member of the army. And you know, he's someone he's an individualist,
Frank Capra, he's very much he's not a you know, he's he's
not he's kind of anti authority. He doesn't like that that kind of stuff.
He doesn't like being told what to do. But he played his part
in the army and recognized the chain of command, and it really people saw
a very different side of him. And the whole war was very hard on
Frank Capra. And even though he didn't see action, he did so much
work in producing these movies and stuff for years that he was he's burned out.
He he says later in life that he left a lot of himself in
the war and he's one of those he you know, this is a period
two, you know, like Jimmy Stewart himself, Jimmy Stewart was you know,
he dropped his career to fight in the war. A lot of people
were doing stuff to take part in this, but Frank Capra was really the
war. The war really fucked him up in a way career wise and maybe
personally too. It's it's it could be argued that it was personal as well,
that everything kind of fucked him up. But he he really couldn't he
couldn't wrap his head around post war America, a place that was very,
very different. That's amazing because he does a masterful job portraying it. Yeah,
well he only one time on that's that's kind of that that's kind of
a kick in the ass. And then when you if we think about it,
it's not like it's a wonderful life was it was a success, right,
you know, as we'll talk about, and it could a lot of
it. It took a long time for that to become what it is today
and certainly positions Capra beautifully to be received by the country as someone uniquely positioned
to document the American experience in the American ethos and the American on WII because
he did his time, and he did it in a way where you know,
he helped the war effort using his unique talents. Yes, Frank Capra
comes out of World War Two much more able to convince the country. I
would imagine considering the experience he has here that he's offering kind of like an
authoritative look at what it means to be American because he's he's seen it all
the way through defending its existence or defending it's it's what it stands for in
the world. Yeah, you'd think that, but it doesn't. I mean,
and and you're partially right, but it doesn't really Again, it doesn't
resonate with people until well after well after well about the movie of a movie.
Yeah, and and you know because because yeah, in many ways,
not in many ways, in the war was a turning point and it's a
wonderful life. A is the beginning of the end for Frank Capra. A
lapsed fan wrestling podcast with Jack and Carneo and JP Sorow he's a lapsed fan
wrestling podcast. He would blame you know, it's kind of like, you
know, he wants to reclaim his pre war glory, but he just can't
do it because it's a different world. And he instead of trying to change
or take responsibility for that or try to do something different, he just would
blame Hollywood's short term memory. Yeah, you know. And the other thing
that kind of happened is that here's a guy who's who was born and raised
in the Hollywood studio system, and as we've talked about in the past,
post war, heading into the fifties and then beyond, studio system is gone.
Yeah, by the mid fifties to the end, the studio system is
gone, and he doesn't know how to thrive in that kind of Hollywood,
you know, where you know, he kind of was able to things weren't
done the same way, you know, the it was just a different time.
And so this is when he he opens Liberty Films, which was one
of, if not the first time that a major filmmaker opened their own independent
production company. Wow, And he opened it with a guy as a producer
named Samuel J. Briskin, and then he had power players join in,
who George Stevens and William Wiler. So there's are big fucking names and we'll
turn to uh, we'll turn to his autobiography. Here again the name above
the title Liberty Films had moved into a private bungalo Oh, they got to
deal with r KO by the way, so that was kind of good.
Okay. I think that was through either Stevens or Wiler or both. Liberty
Films had moved into a private bungalow in the center of our Chaos center court
of R Chao Studios. Stevens was still in the army and Wyler had to
finish his Goldwyn commitment, so it was up to brisk And and me to
make the first Liberty production. The publicity build up about Liberty Films was overwhelming,
and there was much snickering and laying of odds in the inner sanctums of
the major studios that the four colonels as cracked as theirs as their bell would
would fail big. They had the you know, Liberties at the Liberty bell
and the logo. There's no denying that. Butterflies began ranging or putting.
It began putting on their own private air show. In my stomach, how
would Ruth garig Or Demaggio feel if he hadn't swung a bat for four years
and was suddenly asked to hit a home run in Yankee Stadium. Well,
I was not Ruth Garriger dem which made me all the more nervous. It's
frightening to go back to Hollywood after four years, I said to Tim to
Tom Pryor in a New York Times interview, wondering whether you've you've gone rust,
you've lost your touch. I keep telling myself how wonderful it would be
just to sneak out somewhere and make a couple of quickie Westerns, just to
get the feel of things again. Okay, genius, what is your first
film going to be about? I knew one thing it would not be about?
War. I sensed a growing revulsion among among the world's pop people against
brutality. I sensed this would be bound to happen, and soon two nations
will declare war and no one will show up. Now, I wanted no
part of terrified women clutching whimpering children while bombs shook the world and chaos screamed.
No part of GI's bobbing face up, you know, bobbing face down
in the surf of Omaha Beach. Who were they? Your brothers, your
sons, your sweethearts. That cataclysmic aftermath of war, hunger, disease,
despair, you know would read gnawing doubts and man, Why why why did
my wife and children have to be blown to bits? Where is God?
Now? Why must I starve? Why must whole villages starve while fat American
soldiers offer us chewing gum and ravish our women? Why why? Because the
minions of Big Brother were beginning to say in films and books, Because little
man of yourself, you can do nothing to protect yourself from the fat exploiters.
Wise up, You've been had. There is no God, no democracy.
Lies. They are lies that cause war is to hell with God and
mother and your neighbors. Come over to Big Brother. He will feed you,
protect you, and give you peace. The age old siren song of
the dictators feed you, protect you, give you peace. So will any
prison warden. No. My films will explore the heart not with logic,
but with compassion. The heart has its reasons, which reason knows nothing of
blaze Pascal the French scientist. I will deal with the little man's doubts,
his curses, his loss of faith in himself and his neighbor in his God.
And I will show the overcoming of doubts, the courageous renewal of faith,
and the final conviction that of himself he can and must survive and remain
free. For the only true revolutionary is the free man, and the revolution
is liberty, and liberty is revolution. And I will remind the little man
that his mission on earth to is to advance spiritually, that to surrender his
free spirit to big Brother's concentration camp is a step backward to the jungle.
As a filmmaker, I will champion, I will champion man, plead his
causes, protest the degradation of his dignity, spirit, divinity, because be
he saint or sinner, rich or poor, coward or hero, black or
white, genius or retarded, basket case or pol vot falter, be he
lame, halt or blind, each is a piece with his maker. Pat
the head of a child, you are patting God, slay man, you
are murdering goodness. And finally, my films must let every man, woman,
child know that God loves them, and I bet I love them,
and that peace and salvation will become a reality only when they all learn to
love each other. Now, what story ideas that I have for our first
film? None that rang bells. I owned The Flying Yorkshireman during the war.
RKO had taken an option on it, hoping Barry Fitzgerald would play the
same small part. If fitz Gerald refused, RKO gave up their option.
I also had Liberty by It happened on Fifth Avenue, a comedy about a
tramp who found the secret of living the life of Riley. He lives in
rich men's homes in New York and winter, and in Florida homes in summer,
and in their Florida homes in summer. I was reading and rereading Alfred
Noius's novel No Other Man, and on the side was writing an original Western
Pioneer Woman. All these stories had one thing in common. I knew in
my heart I'd never film any of them. I was beginning to wonder why
in the world I had ever started Liberty Films. When Pleasant Charles Kerner,
our RKO studio chief, stuck his head into our Bungalow office and enthusiastically asked,
Frank, you got your first film story yet? No, I can
tell by your push you haven't. I told my wife last night that I'd
button holy. I told my wife last night that i'd button hold you about
the greatest gift, and if you didn't make it, I'd cut my throat.
And Charlie Kerner proceeded to tell me about an original story he bought.
That it was written as a Christmas card by Philip van doren Stern and mailed
to his friends, and at RKO had spent a fortune on three complete scripts
by three great writers Daldon Trumbo, Mark Connolly and Clifford Odetts, and that
not one of the scripts did justice to the original story, and that Charlie,
stop racing your motor. You must have over a half million tied up
in those scripts. Liberty can't handle that kind of frenck. Do me your
ward. You'll make the picture, and I'll give you the greatest gift for
what I paid for the original Christmas card, and I'll throw in the scripts.
Yes, I read the original idea a few type works. This is,
this is, this is listen, we know do you remember how many
pages? It was like thirty twenty pages, four thousand words. Right,
four thousand words of Texas. Dave Mozer would say, right, I read,
I read the original idea. A few typewritten pages abound in Christmas covers.
There was the story I've been looking for all my life. Wow,
my me, small town a mess man, ambitious but so busy helping outthers.
Life seems to pass him by. Despondent, he wishes he'd never been
born. He gets his wish through the eyes of a guardian angel. He
seized the world as it would have been had he not been born. Wow,
what an idea, The kind of idea that I got old, and
that when I got old and sick and scared and ready to die, they'd
still say he made the greatest gift. Charlie, I said, barging into
Kerner's office. How much did you pay for the Christmas card? Fifty thousand?
Pay ten thousand? The guy with that money voice? What's his name
again? Which guy? It's a bartender? Oh yeah, yeah, it's
fucking h Nick in the movie, but it's hold On. I know his
real name. It's uh something, Sheldon, Leonard, Sheldon, Leonard Sheldon.
He I do have a great bite to play later on. That's really
fucking funny. It's a deal, Charlie. If my partners vote for it.
That's the best idea ever read by light years. Wow. So Capra
signs on, and as mentioned earlier, Cary Grant is still attached to the
movie, but once Capra joins in, he dumps carry Grant in favor of
his friend and college Jimmy Stewart, also just back from the war and trying
to find his foot feeding, you know, trying to get back on track.
Brother. And this is Jimmy Stewart at Capra's AFI Lifetime Achievement Awards ceremony,
sharing how it all came about. After the war, I didn't do
very much for a while. I'm Hank Fond and I built some kite and
then we flew them and bought as naire to work on as we can for
a while. And one day Frank Kapper called me and he said he had
an idea for a movie. So I went over to his house and he
started telling me this story. And he said, now you're in a small
town and things aren't going very well, and you begin to wish you'd never
been born, and you decide to commit suicide by jumping off a bridge into
the water, into the river. But an angel named Clarence comes down from
heaven and Clarence hasn't won his wings yet, but he comes down to save
you and jump into the river. But Clarence can't swim, so you save
him. And then uh, then Frank stopped and he said, this story
doesn't tell very well, doesn't I just said, Frank, if you want
to do a movie about me committing suicide with an angel no wings named Clarence,
I'm your boy. A legend, that fucking Jimmy Stewart, like the
Tom Hanks good Luck ever, being as fucking yeah mighty as that guy.
He's the he was a Tom Hanks of his generation total easily, just fucking
awesome. Jimmy Stewart, a blueprint for like everything the United States. God,
he's just he's just he's just a joy, you know, fucking genuine
article. So now it came to writing the movie, and here's where some
problems really start, because you know, like I said, he doesn't like
the the three scripts from before, but he uses elements from them. He
does use elements from them. And speaking of that original script, do you
know how much a copy of one of the two hundred Phil van Dornstern where
the Skifts goes for No, how much? Twenty grand? Of course,
absolutely, shapiro rare book. Holy shit, what I think it is?
God damn, that's that's amazing. So he uh, but he you know,
he has to hire writers to come along. I don't I don't actually
understand his full mentality as to what was going on. I don't know why.
He just he's he's he's not well, Frank Kapper at this point,
seeh I didn't even knew this. Yeah, he's just it's it's, it's.
It gets a little chaotic. So they're going to turn again to the
cat the catastrophe of success for a moment here. He bought the material from
our Ko on September first, nineteen forty five, for fifty thousand dollars,
and on the fourteenth hired Francis Goodrich and Albert Hackett to write a new app.
I'm sorry, you can't be a writer and have your name be Hackett.
That's just not a chance. No, to write a new adapation.
Before he was through, Capra would employ three more screenwriters. Michael Wilson,
a young ex Marine than little known in Hollywood, was signed to writing a
contract with Liberty on January tewod and did what his widow, Zelma has described
as a polish. At the same time, Joe Swirling was working with Capra
on Sene revisions, continuing to do so into the film's production, and Dorothy
Parker did a dialogue polish. The shooting script in Capra's files indicates that about
a fourth of the scenes were rewritten by Swirling and Capra during the shooting,
much more reworking than Capra had found necessary on the well crafted Riskin script.
Now, Riskin was a writer of that he'd had pre war, and they
were friends and Robert Riskin, but they had a falling out. I think
it was political falling out. I believe Riskin was like communist or something.
I forget how it all. I forget how it all went down, but
you know, either way, he couldn't use Riskin. Riskin was a great
writer for Capra movies. After a Screenwriter's Guild arbitration we know those from a
last sestion Hero, those fucking arbitrations over who gets the writing credit, Capra
was granted a screenplay credit in third position with the Hackets, and Swirling was
credited for additional scenes, though the Guild gave no credit to Trumbo, Odettes,
Connolly Wilson or Parker. Wilson was acknowledged in the Academy bulletin as contributor
to screenplay. Wonderful Life marked the first time since Forbidden in nineteen thirty two
that Capra had received screen credit as a writer, and it also would be
the last time the Guild would grant him writing credit on one of his own
features, despite his attempts on subsequent films. Caepra's insistence on screen credit for
the for his writing contributions in the post war era, while it had some
basis in the case of Wonderful Life, was also one of the reasons for
his drastic creative decline after that film. His egotistical need to deny the importance
of the screenwriter to his films had already dealt a nearly fatal blow to his
career by sabotaging his creative relationship with Robert Riskin, and from this point his
need to be recognized as a writer himself would make it increasingly difficult for him
to work with first rate riders. Finally, Yeah, right. Seriously.
Finally, if everybody's booking the heat and he's the one that's like insisting that
somehow he's authoring the things. Really, all he's doing, yes, minding
the set pieces. Mm hmm. Finally throwing him back on his own limited
resources and on the help of the fanatically anti communist Miles Connolly, who had
made himself unavailable for Wonderful Life because of a falling out with Caepra after meet
John Doe over his lack of recognition on screen, a situation Kaepra later rectified.
Albert Hackett recalled telling his friend Riskin at the time of the Wonderful Life
Arbert tration quote, Capra is now fighting for getting his name on the credits,
to beat the writers. Not so much for the picture he's doing now,
but for all those pictures Riskin did with him, trying to say that
he's better than Riskin. Capra's selective memory of the screenwriting process of Wonderful Life
in later years may have stemmed not only from egotism, but also from a
need to purge the film retrospectively of questionable political influences. Let's go more on
that later. The Hackets never wanted to see it's a wonderful life because of
their dislike of Capra, whom Goodrich called quote, this is one of the
writers Capra hired. Francis Goodrich, husband of Albert Hackett, I mean wife
of Albert Hackett. Goodrich called Capra. Quote that hellried man, let's go
that horrid man. Mister fucking you know m hmmm, American aw tour.
Yes, put him up by his bootstraps. Damn fucking right, embodiment of
the American dream. Maybe chronicler, documentary image maker of the American dream.
Tyrant, maybe tyrant of the American dream. If you talk to everybody but
the people who worked with him, Dan, Yeah, that's right on wonderful
life. Their dispute was over professional ethics. Quote. He couldn't wait to
get writing on it himself. Goodrich felt, and Hackett recalled quote, we
never had much to do with Kapra. Really, he'd just come out of
the war. He'd just come out of the war, and he was letting
us go our way. We told him what we were going to do,
and he said that sounds fine. We were trying to move this story along
and work it out, and then somebody told us that Capra and Joe Swirling,
we're working on it together, and that sort of took the guts out
of it. Joe Swirling was a very close friend of ours, and when
he heard that, and when we heard that he was doing this, we
felt rather bad about it. We were getting near the end and word came
that Capra wanted to know how soon would be finished. So my wife said,
we're finished now. Yes. We quickly wrote out the last scene and
we never saw him again after that. He's a very arrogant son of a
bitch. It's a wonderful life, but it's not a wonderful set. It's
not a wonderful script. It's not a wonderful it's not a wonderful experience.
That's exactly, thank you. It's a wonderful life, but it's not a
wonderful experience, is it. They're almost poetic in its own way. Oh,
absolutely, Only only a situation this corrupt and miserable could create a movie
as beautiful as a wonderful life. You exactly all right? You find me
a picture of this significance and of this import and of this sweep that was
made in a in a harmonious atmosphere. Oh, yeah, and you didn't
know what kind of movie you make when you're trying to say, fuck you,
I'm the man exactly, and if you're also kind of delusional in trying
to like and you're in your own personal regression sure, which which very much
is the kind of movie emitter. And you feel doubters stacking up right,
And not only that, but you feel the world, kind of the world
you knew collapsing or has collapsed, and so you try to recreate it.
Oh boss, don't you fuck Huh? What do you mean? Huh?
Absolutely, Frank Capra, I mean, can we now, you know,
can we now after all my years, you know, loving this movie and
studying this movie and watching it every year and reading about it and all of
this, can we now put the pair of glasses on that reads the whole
thing as a psychological portrait of Frank Kappra's on unwinding. Oh yes, I
think it may be time to do that, and I will I will definitely
go over some some autobiographical elements that he don't have necessarily known that he put
in there when he did it. But anyway, Uh, first off,
this is a so the good the Hackett's nephew, David Goodrich. He wrote
an article in two thousand and one for The New York Times that where he
talked about he shared about his disgruntled aunt and uncle. This is from He's
actually kind of crazy to think about this article. He wrote this article or
it was published December second, two thousand and one, so less than three
months after nine to eleven. Yeah, and he's writing about a fucking it's
a wonderful life. God, I don't remember what Christmas was like in two
thousand and one. I can't even think about what it was like in two
thousand and one, talk about talk about a different one. Don't remember Christmas
two thousand and one me neither. I don't remember anything after. Like I
remember nine to eleven. I can remember, I can remember being at my
in my friend's dorm room and at one hundred Beacon and seeing the skyline against
a very very almost ominous orange sky from the sun setting. But I can't
remember, for the life of me anything except playing No Mercy. Yeah.
I know, I know you would think that that would that episode would sort
of overwhelm that that holiday season. Yeah, I don't remember it at all.
I don't remember that well actually, you know what, now and I
think about it, I do remember it was actually not a good one because
that's when I I broke up with my high school girlfriend. Actually there for
different reasons. It was all negative. It's all negative. So nine to
eleven kind of went beyond. And if I'm not mistaken, that coincided with
my sacrifice. Fuck you, Yes, I'm just trying. I'm just like
thinking about dates and times. Yeah, funk off. Okay, so this
article this time of year, Americans about the thousands will enjoy a yearly near
religious ritual. They will switch on their television sets and watch It's a Wonderful
Life. But the warmth people now feel for the movie was not shared by
its screenwriters, Francis goodrich Now and Albert Hackett. The Hackets were my aunt
and uncle, married in nineteen thirty one, when he was thirty and she
was forty. They had by nineteen forty five built a solid reputation, writing
scripts for pictures including The Thin Man and two of its sequels, as well
as Naughty Marietta, Rose Marie, and Ah Wilderness. Previously, they had
acted on Broadway. He was the more successful, having appeared opposite the vaudeville
star Eddie Canter in the Zigfield musical hit Whoopee. They had also helped to
found the screen Writers Guild, later renamed the Writers Guild when television and radio
writers joined. In many ways, Francis and Albert, who had no children
of the realm, were the ideal aunt and uncle, warm, generous,
always interested in even the most childish going on. My own daughter got to
watch my own daughter got to watch the Thanksgiving Day parade from their West Side
apartment huh wow. And they had a list of people who were on the
receiving end of monthly or yearly infusions of cash in their writing collaboration. She
was the organizer, the one who shouted at producers in ladylike tones. He
was the main creator of sparkling dialogue. But being with them could be thrilling.
They were known for their wit, their sophistication, and the delights of
their bel air dinner parties, and they counted James Cagney, F. Scott's
Fitzgerald, Lillian Hellman, and S. J. Pearlman among their friends.
In hiring the hackets, capra knew what he was getting. In his autobiography,
he called them perceptive human writers. The Hackins, in turn, knew
what they were getting, or thought they did. Frank Capra was undoubtedly a
great filmmaker and a man of truly impressive accomplishments, as many screenwriters acknowledged quote,
I'd rather be Capra than God. Garson Canaan had once said, if
there is a Capra, so she's saying Capra is God I see? Or
God is Capra or one of the waters. In nineteen thirty five, and
a letter to their agent, Francis had gushed, quote, any writer would
give his soul to work for him. He's so creative. At first,
the Hackets and Capra got along smoothly. Then the writers learned that Capra and
Joe Swirling, as we said, a highly successful screenwriter, were rewriting their
pages, and that whole situation went down, And then Albert said in an
interview he gave on the subject. Relations worsened when at a meeting, Capra
called Francis quote, my dear woman. Francis could be condescending, Albert told
the journalist, And you just didn't address Francis as my dear woman. And
we have when we were pretty far along on the script and not done our
agent called and said, Capra wants to know how soon you'll be finished.
Francis said, we're finished now. We put our pens down and never went
back to it in years. In later years, describing Caepra's behavior, both
Francis and Albert used language unprintable in a family newspaper. When they handed in
their version, Capra quickly began making changes. Later, at a party while
the film was being shot, the Hackets heard an anecdote from Beula Bondi,
who was playing Stuart's mother. Francis recalled it in another interview. She said,
quote, the most miraculous thing happened. There's this scene which is just
words, words, words, and it couldn't play. So Capra shut down
for the day and told us to come back the next morning. He came
in the next morning with a simple, lovely scene and it worked. The
point is that scene that wouldn't work had been Capra's, and the simple scene
was the one we had done originally. The Hackets were so bitter after working
with Capra that for many years they said they had made a point of never
seeing It's a wonderful life, But they later admitted that that, like millions
of others they had finally seen it on television. Yes, and in his
defense, Capra did add a lot of elements that were essential to the picture.
For example, in any of the previous drafts, there was no mister
Potter. There was no mister Potter. That was a Capra invention, okay.
And then there were some autobiography omens that Capra shared with George Bailey.
In this post war society, Capra and George Bailey go through a kind of
secret dare I say, metaphysical crisis, wondering if they had put too much
faith in people. Ye. Both Capra and George equate poverty with desperation and
shame. Yep. They both share scientific technical ambitions that were never realized.
Yes. Yes, both men's fathers had significance. Well, both both men's
father's deaths had significance impact on their lives, significant impacts on their lives.
Neither one actually able to serve in World War two. You know, Capra
didn't get to see any action. Yeah. They both fear anonymity and they
both doubt their own self worth. You lots going on there, thank you,
much more to that, but we'll talk about that when we get there.
A little bit later, and like I said, beginning of the end
of Frank Caepra's career, because he never he never reignited it. You know.
Was it Hollywood's fault? I don't know. Was his innability to change?
Was it his ego? Was it his was it a little bit of
everything, a little bit of all the above? Was it his inability to
rationalize reality with his with his Carnie instincts. He made five theatrical feature films
after Its Wonderful Life, and they would be considered minor successes at best.
None of them made a lot of money, not a lot at all,
and his too, His final two films, A Hole in the Head in
nineteen fifty nine and A Pocket Full of Miracles in nineteen sixty one, were
the only ones. These were the only two films he made that were in
color, which is fascinating to think about. It actually is something I've never
seen, nor considered a Frank Capra movie in color. I've never seen these
last time existed, you know, right, and then he stopped. He
was just done. How Get Full of Miracles looks like a Christmas movie?
Here? I don't know, I might be Can I see a poster with
a big old Christmas treat that very well could be. I'm might have to
watch it, maybe add it to the collection. And then yeah, I
mean, then he wrote his memoir came out nineteen seventy one, history started
changing, and then you saw the revitalization of It's a Wonderful Life after that.
And it's kind of fascinating to think about the fact that his autobiography came
out before It's a Wonderful Life. Yeah, you know, found its audience
twenty one years after the release of his final film. In nineteen eighty two,
as we stated before, the American Film Institute awarded him the tenth recipient
of their Lifetime Achievement Award, and here is his acceptance speech. I want
to tell you I am just about the happiest man in the world. I
loved listening to all. Let's talk about the so called art of Frank Capra
art. And because you've been so kind to one Francisco Capra, born a
peasant nearly eighty five years ago in Vizequino, Sicily, tonight, I'm going
to tell you the real secret of the whole thing. The art of Frank
Capra is very, very simple. It's the love of people. And add
two simple ideals to this love of people, the freedom of each individual and
the equal importance of each individual. And you have the principle upon which I've
based all my films. Well, I've made my films, and now the
American Film Institute is doing a wonderful job of helping a new generation to make
theirs. And may I say a word to this new generation. Don't follow
trends. This guy would have loved to talk. Oh God, don't compromise.
Believe in yourself, because only the valiant can create. Only the daring
should make films, and only the morally courageous are worthy of speaking to their
fellow men for two hours and in the dark. And now, while I'm
up here, I'd like to send a few Valentines. First of all to
the most important person in my life, my wife, Lou. The night
I met her, I thought, what a lovely voice. I've been listening
to that voice with pleasure and delight for fifty years. Next, my three
children, Frank that is, sand, Lucille and Tom, and now our
grandchildren stand up kids, Frank the third, Jonathan, Maria, Claire,
Teresa, Jack, Jennifer, Jim, Tony Monica. Now sit down your
bumbs, life renewing itself, wonderful kids. Ten. Now I'll admit I'm
a hell of a director. I'll admit that. Let me tell you something.
If it weren't for stars like at Colbert, Betty Davis, Barbara Sandrick,
Jean Arthur, Jane Wyatt, Faye, Ray, Donna, Reed and
Gable and Cooper and Coleman and Stewart and Tracy and Grant and Sinatra and Crosby,
and without brilliant writers like Bob Briskin, Joe Swirling and Sydney Buckman,
and without artistic digniicians like Joe Walker, a great cameraman to stand up Joe
Walker, Bill Hornback, great Bill Medie, Bill Hornback right. Well,
there, harm I could work for them, Well, i'd still be peddling
papers. An occasion like this, when we all get together to pay homage
to our craft, it forces me to think, how in the hell did
I get up here? Well, nearly seventy nine years ago, I celebrated
my sixth birthday in the black dark hole about creaking ship crammed with wretching,
praying, terrorized immigrants, thirteen days of misery, and then the ship stopped
and my father grabbed me and carried me up the steep iron stairs to the
deck, and then he shouted, Chico, look at that. At first,
all I saw it was a deck full of people on their knees,
crying and rejoicing. My father cried, that's the greatest light since the Star
of Bethlehem. I looked up and there was the statue of a great lady,
taller than the chure steeple, holding a over the land we were about
to enter. And my father said, it's the light of freedom. Chico,
remember that freedom. So finally there is something I must say to some
other members of my family, and I believe that they will hear me.
Mama, Papa, big brother, Bed, Josephine, Tony, the little
sister Anne. Remember the day we arrived at the Southern Pacific Station here in
Los Angeles, and Papa and Mama kissed the ground. Look, the American
Film Institute has given me its Life Achieved award, and for that I am
thanking them and all my friends who have come here but for America, just
for living here. I kissed the ground. Thank you very much, good
stuff. Three years after he accepted this award, he suffered the first of
a series of devastating strokes. It's correct, that rendered him virtually helpless.
It's correct. And he spent the final six years of his life in a
condo at the Santa Rosa Cove, located just outside of Palm Springs in Lakinta.
Not a Lakinta, but Lakinta, California. Although I guess the Santa
Rosa Cove was actually in a complex of a Lakina. Wow, So Kevin
Nash knows that one too. I'm pretty sure he's got points in that Lakinta.
Sure. And then on September third, nineteen ninety one, he suffered
a fatal heart attack at nine in the morning. Yes, Joseph McBride wrote
this in the towards the end of his book. More than half a century
after Capper made his decision to forsake his scientific ambitions for motion pictures. I
asked him if he thought he had made the right choice. Not particularly you
think you would have been happier in science, Yes, why I would have
done more? Where do you think you would have ended up with Doctor Edwin
Hobble As an astronomer, I could study a staris and the planets forever.
I always wanted to know why. Why then? Why didn't you do it?
What changed your mind? Pictures changed my mind. I was too far
along on the movie business when I got to go to cal Tech now.
But when I go to cal Tech now and hear about things I'm not familiar
with, like black holes, God damn, I get mad. How the
hell I ever refuse that? I don't know whatever made me refuse it.
Did you ever think then that scientists were more respectable than movie people? Even
now? A movie director is not as important as an astronomer. Well,
an astronomer isn't as well known, perhaps, no, but they're known among
themselves. So was it fame that was most important to you then? Was
that what made you make the decision? Yes, it was I want her
to be somebody. But you do have regrets, Yes, But it seems
like motion pictures have a terrific hold in me. I don't know what it
is. I guess it's the audience. The audience kept me in there.
I had made something and had shown it to people, and they had liked
it, applauded or something that I think was what turned me into it.
That was why I didn't quit, although I certainly was sorely tempted. And
lastly, on Frank Capra, John Cassavetti's great actor, great one of the
pioneers of independent filmmaking, once said quote, maybe there really wasn't in America.
Oh it was only Frank Capra. Uh fucking hell, goddamn it,
goddamn it. He's an lapsed fan wrestling podcast with Jack and Carnacio and JP Soro.