A Nazi on Wall Street Podcast
A Nazi on Wall Street Podcast
The Development of A Nazi on Wall Street with Justin Isett
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ANOWS PODCAST SEASON 2 FINALE
We’ve been teasing this one for a while now. Want to know how you go from a crazy idea to preparing a professional pitch for Hollywood producers? Jay and EJ talk to Justin Isett about developing the A Nazi on Wall Street project. Spies, G-Men, femme fatales, and more! You don’t want to miss this one.
Photo by Gemma Evans on Unsplash
Hey, Jay , I'm curious, why do we call this podcast a Nazi on Wall Street?
Speaker 2I'm glad you asked ej You know, I study history. The Nazi on Wall Street Podcast is part of elusive films, a Nazi on Wall Street Project, which tells the true story of how the Nazis sent a pair of des spies , a German lawyer, and a beautiful diabolical barness to recruit American corporations for the fascist cause. And only a Jewish FBI agent stood in their way.
Speaker 1<laugh>. Wow. How are you going to make this story come to life?
Speaker 2We are raising funds to produce a short film highlighting just one part of the Anazi and Wall Street pilot script, which showcases our team's talents and writing and production. Awesome.
Speaker 1Where can someone go to learn more and help contribute to the cause?
Speaker 2Chances are, we're running a fundraiser right now, but regardless of when you hear this episode, you can go to elusive hyphen film slash donate to contribute to putting this highly relevant history on screen .
Speaker 1Great. I hear there's some cool donation incentives too, like mugs, totes, shirts, and more for yourself, or to give us a gift.
Speaker 2That's right. Go to elusive hyphen film slash donate to learn more now onto today's show. Uh , I, I just want thank you, Justin, for making time to be here. And thank you. And with all my heart for all that you've put into this project Takes a Village <laugh> . I really appreciate it very much.
Speaker 3Thank you for trusting me with formatting your nerd stuff. I, I, I encountered a pile of nerd in the name of Jay . I put slug lines and action lines and even dialogue to let that nerd pile come to, to a screen near you .
Speaker 1That's your next band name, nerd pile .
Speaker 2Nerd pile . You heard it here first on the Wall Street Podcast . Thank you so much .
Speaker 1Welcome to a Nazi on Wall Street Podcast, because every time history repeats, the price goes up.
Speaker 2I'm Dr . Jay Weisbaum. I am a , uh, writer and , uh, producer of the , uh, Nazi on Wall Street Project.
Speaker 1And I'm EJ Russo. I'm just a regular guy who has grown concerned by the recent rise of anti-democratic sentiment growing around the world and is just trying to figure out what the heck is really happening. Jay and I created this podcast in part to help promote his project, a Nazi on Wall Street, but to also discuss troubling current events and give them historical context. Jay , my friend, how are you doing?
Speaker 2I'm feeling good. You know, we've made , uh, uh, a lot of progress on the a Nazi on Wall Street Project, which we're gonna talk about. It's very exciting. The world is still , uh, very chaotic. Uh, we're recording this on Super Bowl Sunday again to, to give listeners a , a historical reference point when they, when they check this out, perhaps a long time from now. So , uh, uh, it's an interesting time. The Super Bowl news is overshadowing a major , uh, chemical disaster in Ohio. Um, that's very troubling. We hope everybody's safe.
Speaker 1I'm, I'm really excited about today's episode because we finally get to discuss something that we've been hinting about for a long time. Something that basically spawned the whole reason why we are doing this podcast. And, and that is to finally really deconstruct and, and, and discover what a Nazi on Wall Street is all about.
Speaker 2That's true. And , uh, I'm, I'm even more excited in the fact that we are joined by Justin Isit , uh, who is here with us. Uh, uh, I've worked with him , uh, for , um, almost , uh, almost three years now on , uh, on this project. It's been a journey. Uh, Justin , uh, how are you doing? Hello?
Speaker 3I'm doing well. I am in Atlanta , uh, down near the film industry. So
Speaker 2You went down there to, to be part of the, to be part of the industry. You're a busy, you're a busy guy.
Speaker 3Yeah, I , I mean, I moved down here cause this is cheaper than New York and LA and it was a huge section of the film industry down here at this point. Actually, not a ton, a ton, a ton of writing yet. Um, mostly production
Speaker 2Because we met , uh, we met elsewhere. We did not meet in Atlanta. I actually have not been to that city yet.
Speaker 3When I forgot where I met you, I probably at a party or something in Baltimore, but it was in Baltimore, around
Speaker 2In Baltimore. And it was related to a , a , a thing that intersects many of the folks who've jumped in and outta the Nazi Wall Street projects. Uh , the Baltimore Rock Opera Society,
Speaker 1Huh ?
Speaker 3Yeah. A , um, spirited group of individuals. They are a special kind.
Speaker 1So, Justin, tell us a little bit about your background, who you are and, and , uh, and what you do with a Nazi on Wall Street.
Speaker 3So, I'm the head writer on Nazi and Wall Street. I typed up the pilot, the short film, and I've , I've written the scripts. I've co-wrote the story with Jay and another writer, Jim Ginsburg. In this context , Ryan , the story would be taking historical events and as truthful as we can, putting them in an order that the audience will be able to understand and empathize with and be moved by , uh, when they're progressing for the story. My ma major contribution, as I wrote the pilot,
Speaker 2We , we actually have a pilot script very excited about it .
Speaker 1<laugh> . So what really drew you to the story of a Nazi on Wall Street?
Speaker 3Um, so Jay and I were working on something else. Uh , it was an essay I was writing, and I was like, Hey, I need help right on this essay. And he was like, well, I'm an academic, I help you. And he is like, well, I'll trade you and if you help me on this essay, if I help you on this essay, excuse me, will you help me on this project? I discovered in my research that I think would make a good movie. We were talking about a movie first, you know, your typical two hour hopefully for some sort of distribution movie. And then as soon as he told me what the story was, I was like, there's no way you're gonna fit this into a movie. This is like a six hour , seven hour , at least, probably eight to 10 mini-series story. It's a big, big story.
Speaker 2I remember, man , uh, I, well, I had , I had forgotten that that's, that was , uh, that was a, this is a great story, this trade off deal. Uh, I, I remember you , uh, you turned me on to , uh, uh, a writer , uh, on , uh, economics and ethics called , uh, uh, Amaren , uh, who I had encountered a little bit in my academic travels. And yeah, we were digging into writing a piece about this kind of application of philosophy and different contexts and , uh, yeah. And then we started to, I, and then I , cuz I do re I do remember like this kind of conscious decision to go from, wait, there's no way that we can tell the Anazi and Wall Street story in, in , uh, in a movie format cuz it's just, there's so, there's so many facets. There's so many companies, there's so many different intersecting story arcs.
Speaker 1So then, is it okay if I ask the question, what is the story? I mean, we have our lead-in bumper where we ask for donations and steer people towards a, a website where they can, you know, they can donate money to the cause. And we offer a , a very quick and general idea of kind of what the story might be to, but I'll be honest, to the audience, I really have no idea what this story is about. Who the major characters are, what time period this, like, I have no idea
Speaker 2The dear listeners. We've kept EJ in the Dark for two years, finally to reveal what is actually going on , uh, in this story. Uh , Justin, do you wanna take a crack at it or, or do you want me to do it? The
Speaker 3Actual log line is a Nazi on Wall Street is the story of a Jewish FBI agent , um, investigating Nazi spies and corporations working with Nazis in 1941 America,
Speaker 21940. Well,
Speaker 3It, it goes between, yeah,
Speaker 2It goes into 1941 course because then they discover even bigger , uh, conspiracies. Dun dun dun .
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2Cliffhanger to season two.
Speaker 3We talk about Nazis as if it was this really crazy thing that happened only once, and it just popped out of nowhere in Europe in about 1937. And no one in America was a Nazi or sympathetic to Nazis. But in reality, you know, this is what Jay brought to me, is that there was a lot of, I don't wanna say maybe sympathy. I mean, there was certainly some outright Nazis in America, people who were like, finally, Ugh , the Jews finally someone is gonna get these guys. And then, and then there were people who were just thinking, you know, they're in charge now and we own a business and we have to work with whoever's in charge, regardless of if we're selling munitions that are gonna end up invading Poland or bombing London. But, you know, we work in steel and oil and all these things that make the world go around and, you know, the German war machine is a buyer like any other. And so there's sort of everything in between too .
Speaker 2Yeah. And the big challenge of telling the story is , you know, I, I have kind of one foot in the academic world and one foot in the creative world, and I was trying to take all this rich academic material that I had produced or pulled together in about 20, now 20 years of, of working on this topic and make it into a compelling story. My gut was always telling me that this is, I'm just shocked that no one has made , uh, a show or a movie about this yet. And at least for just to , to respond to what Justin just said on the kind of academic side, I , yeah, I always saw there's kind of a spectrum of collaboration. I was really trying to tease that out in my writing. Like some people are just immoral. Some people are making like conscious choice to be evil. Uh, some people are, are being duplicitous. Some people are just following along and, and that , you know, it's this , uh, this helps us understand a little bit some something about human nature and choice, agency responsibility and those things. So I , I really wanted to kind of tease that out explicitly using all the documents I could find as much as my own resources would allow to tell the story. But then, like, I had all this and , um, I really needed some help making it into something compelling. I , I just , I was really interested to hear your perspective on , um, yeah. And how it all came together back , uh, we're about to celebrate an anniversary back in May of , uh, 2020 , uh, almost three years ago now. How, how , from your perspective, like how this all started? Cause for me, I'm like, I was all over the place.
Speaker 3Yeah. Um, so you had the story and then you talked to me about it and you just kind of info dumped with History Brain . I found out what historians do, in case everyone's curious, is if you give them a topic of conversation, they will tell you a lot of information on it , uh, very quickly , um, maybe quicker than you can process, but they will certainly open the vaults, so to say. So you, you came to me with partial information. We actually discovered things after that. Yeah. Um , but you had a spy who was real mm-hmm . <affirmative> and who had like, lost a leg in world one and had traveled around the country with a bombshell barness . Like, we didn't make any of that up.
Speaker 2It was , yeah . It's all ,
Speaker 3You know, I got a one-legged Nazi going around meeting with like Henry Ford in General Motors and a smoking hot minor German nobility trying to move up in the world through devious means. So I already got me a , a man in black and a fem fatal . And then yeah . You know , the FBI was investigating them . And then we found out we were going to make the main character Jewish just out of interest, just because we , I , I thought it was an interesting perspective for a character to have at that time. And then we found out the actual F b I agent who was responsible for this investigation was himself Jewish. So we didn't have to make any of that up. And then yeah, we were able to bring in from there some really powerful, and I think probably the most compelling part of the story is, you know , a theme of identity and what it means to be American , what it means to be just in the world , what it means to do the right thing .
Speaker 2Yeah .
Speaker 3Because our, our primary character is, you know, an FBI agent in 1940 . So this is just after your kind of Al Capone F B I . Right? So these are very much the, the traditional G and a lot of Italian mobsters were kind of running am mock . And so they get this kind of international politics case, right? And so here's this guy who's a pretty standard law and order cop, but who is , you know, fundamentally by who he is in the world, challenged by these questions that seem like they shouldn't be questions, right? I mean, we shouldn't be asking, are we comfortable cooperating with a hostile course in Europe? Are we comfortable operating financially with bigotry, but he has to go out and prove it through means of detection and investigation and all these, you know, you're kind of a film noir type of Yeah . Mechanism.
Speaker 2Yeah. Yeah. I mean , uh, when , um, when we really started this project in earnest and I, I, I felt like I needed to do my homework and, and watch as many old noir movies as I could and, and learn a lot about the tropes and where they come from and, and stuff like this. What was cool about this story is how much it was a , a true crime , uh, film noir story. And that this, this main character , um, he , he's, yeah, he's kind of, he's on this arc where, you know, like every, everything he trusts is falling apart, right? The concept of America, the just , uh, you know, businesses doing the right thing. People , uh, are not who they seem <laugh> . Uh, and , uh, and so it's, it was kind of tailor made for that kind of arc where it's like slowly but surely, you know, this world is turned upside down and topsy turvy and, and everything is shadowed. Uh , and then , uh, and , and , uh, we, we learned about all these other characters and how, and how they, they fold in , uh, um, making discoveries along the way was I think the most fun , uh, part I had as kind of riding the line.
Speaker 1So besides, you know, watching a bunch of movies and trying to figure out exactly, you know, how the beats of a filmed war type of , uh, style movie , um, would, would be written. What was the writing process like, constructing the actual pilot script, you know, working with the historical materials and such?
Speaker 3Um, so basically Jamie, Jay and I would have meetings I think once a week originally. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> , right ? And so we would go over, I mean, essentially it's, you , you have a pretty traditional story structure in it . I mean, it's, it's the structure. A lot of writers write to , you know, you have your act one , you have your inciting incident, you have your challenge debate of it . You're breaking two , you know, the stuff everyone does when they work in, in film now. And then I was basically Jamie , or , well, I , I think kind of a good description of how we operated is I was like, I need this thing, Jay . What happened that does this thing? You know, like, you know, when does he find out that he is being taken to New York from Milwaukee to be, you know, taken to, or to start investigating these Nazis? Or like, when do we, like, where was our bad guy when our good guy was here? And so I, I need this thing, right? I need someone to really mess with my protagonist to really like kick his right in the middle, right? And I'm like, well, who kicked this guy's? And he was like, oh , well there's an airport named after him called Dulls Airport that that's not a. Um, and so I was like, oh, that guy sounds like he sucks. Cause he was like, yeah, Nazis, let's get chummy with him cuz you know, keep your friends close and your enemies closer. That was, that was like one of their guys. So I'm like, all right , well that works. Let's put that in the middle. So Jay was giving me facts and I was telling them how facts would working stories so an audience could track 'em . And then basically I would say, Jamie , what do you think of that? And Jamie would be like, that sucks. And I would be like, good point. And then I would come up with something better and Jamie would be like, yeah, that works. And I'd be like, cool. Thanks Jamie . <laugh> . Jamie was my , um, she was kind of my, my my other set of eyes to evaluate whether or not we were making like, compelling story decisions. She actually majored in screenwriter. I started as a playwright and then moved to film later. Jamie . Jamie really started as like a true screenwriter.
Speaker 1And who's Jamie?
Speaker 2Uh, Jamie Ginsburg , uh, is our, our our third writer. Um, she's, she stepped back , uh, from the project, but , um, but was very involved in, in this kind of beginning phase of, of writing , uh, the script. Um, and , uh, hello Jamie . We love you. And , uh, we're excited and you're always welcome back into our team. Uh , whenever , uh, whenever you like
Speaker 3To be specific, Jay , Jamie and I wrote the story together, so kind of like when you go on Wikipedia and read about a movie, like, we did that together. And then I went off and over the course of couple months, like typed out the pilot, did a draft of the pilot, then we had a reading, and like we redrafted it a couple times to get it to the point where you could send it to executives and people with money and be like, yeah,
Speaker 2Yeah . Well, even before, before that we, I mean, it, it wasn't clear what we were doing at first. We wrote a short film script first, even before the pilot. Yeah . Cuz we, we weren't sure like how we were gonna operate if we were gonna like, try to get funding and make this thing ourselves, or
Speaker 1What the heck. Yeah. How was , how was the actual evolution from the movie project to the mini-series project? I know you , you , you alluded to, oh my gosh, there's just so much there that we are gonna need at least eight to 10 episodes. But what was the actual evolution of that? Because I remember early on it was primarily a, a , a film.
Speaker 3Uh, so my faith in it being viable as a film lasted about 10 seconds. Um, Jay told me what happened and I was like, dude, this is crazy. This is, you know, you're , you're just like, it's a , it's a 600 page book at least. But it , it's a big story. That's the big thing. I mean , there's, you know , there's the fbi , there's Nazis, there's like six companies, there's so many people, there's real people who you can't leave out. Like you kind of can't leave Jag or Hoover out of this, right. Cause he was really involved. You can't leave John Foster Dallas and Allen Dallas out of it. Um , they were John Foster Dallas was Secretary of State under fdr.
Speaker 2Uh , no , uh, Eisenhower a little bit later after the war. Yeah .
Speaker 3Eisenhower, he was the guy who was in charge of the CIA when we toppled Iran .
Speaker 2Uh , so, well the Dus brothers are , uh, special. Yes . So they , uh, John Foster, the older Secretary of State kind of overt policy, Alan dus , the younger slipperier , uh, covert , uh, policy. So, but , uh, in tandem , uh, the , uh, the histories of Iran and Guatemala and a few other places , um, changed forever because of their actions.
Speaker 3Yeah. So they're just, they're , they were legitimately part of the story. Um, essentially our, our guy Westrick , who was the Nazi spy, was very much in tandem with them , like very known . And so that takes so much. I mean, there's just, stories just need air, you know what I mean? The story tells you how long it has to be. Um, some stuff is pretty straightforward. It's 90 minutes. But this is, this was just an epic from the beginning. So as soon as Jay kind of came to me, I , I just told him I didn't think it was viable as movie. I think it had to be, you know, one of these big series.
Speaker 2And it was really crazy , uh, for me about the writing process from my end. And I mean, what was so fun too, is that, you know, yeah, Justin would ask me to pull a rabbit out of my hat. You know, we'd get to, you know, he's approaching it from like, okay, we have this, here's this story structure. This is how, this is how audiences , uh, consume and get excited about, about this. And he'd be like, okay, pull a rabbit out. And I'd pull out like five rabbits and be like, all right , well, we're gonna use rabbits like three through five elsewhere. And then I was like, there's also 10 other rabbits that I didn't choose. Again, I'm just gonna reiterate, I'm, I'm continually shocked , uh, that , uh, film and TV have not deeply explored. And maybe it's because there's some powerful corporations that are still around. Maybe not, maybe we change their names, but , uh, there are so many, so many rabbits to pull out of hats that just are just , uh, amazing and dramatic in their own right. And are true.
Speaker 3Yeah. I've definitely said at least five times during this process, like, why am I here?
Speaker 2It's writing itself <laugh>. Yeah.
Speaker 3We would, we would have a need. So we got feedback from somebody and they were like, you need an action scene at the beginning to set the stakes so people know this is like, there's Nazis about, and it's like life and death. Right ? And so we, I asked, you know, well, how did the founder, founder of the American Boone get arrested? And it was just like, well, a high speed car chase outside Yorktown, Pennsylvania. And I was just like, what, what am I, okay. I guess exterior, like street night, Yorktown, Pennsylvania, a car comes hurling down the street carrying a Nazi, being chased by police officer. Sure. I can tell you what that looks like on a film script if you need to put it on set. I didn't come up with any of that. That's just, it's just this crazy thing that happened.
Speaker 2That's just what Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we haven't, we haven't even gotten to the part where like the guy , uh, one of the guys who James Bond is based on shows up at the end to like help any , you know, again, true story actually involved in , in , uh, catching this spy. It's just, it's wild. And
Speaker 1Jay, you touched upon this just a little bit ago where you mentioned that , uh, there might be some corporations that would push back against this story being told. Do you foresee this happening as you're trying to pitch this to, you know, certain, certain distribution companies?
Speaker 2I don't know. I've gotten mixed , um, opinions , um, as I've asked around , um, and thought about this. You know, I mean, obvi obviously coming from my own perspective, my own work , um, there's kind of a journalistic aspect to my dissertation if this enterprising , uh, listeners poke around and find it. Um, where I, I kind of talk in real time about how the companies I was trying to study reacted to me and trying to put up barriers , uh, to , uh, access for me to access even more material to kind of add more to the story. Uh, it's always great when you call a a , a major corporations , uh, uh, corporate archives and they're like, how'd you get this number? So yeah , I was anticipating , uh, pushback. That being said, you know, there's all kinds of ways, artistic license, and I'm not a lawyer. Um, and big production companies have those , um, and have dealt with these issues. I am not terribly worried , uh, about that. I think there's ways to, there's ways to get around that and cross that bridge when we come to it. But for now, you know, this story is just so fascinating on its own and how it interweaves, you know, whether it's, I mean, we've talked about this company as it's not a secret, you know, general Motors has been out there, Ford we mentioned. Um, I b m obviously is well known . Um, uh, and some other companies, I t t Texaco, a few others, and of course there's a , a Wall Street law firm is somebody with Google will find out really quickly , uh, which law firm , uh, the Dallas Brothers worked for. Uh, that's not hard to find out either. Um, and, and it's an incredible story how these all weaved together.
Speaker 1So how many times did you call Henry Ford a Nazi in the script?
Speaker 3I think just once. But in my defense, his one line is a direct quote from Time Magazine. Yes . Yes. Where he says, people don't like baseball cause there's too much Jew. So like, that's not really my fault. Like, I didn't say it in a Time Magazine interview, homie. That's, that's on you. I will say the only entity that scares me is the law firm. Cause I think if they sue me, they're gonna like send me back to Guam. They're just gonna like export me from the country. I don't know how they'll pull it off, but they'll find, they'll find like a 19th century trade agreement after, or like after the Spanish American War where they're like, yeah, this guy's gotta , we gotta expatriate this dude. For some
Speaker 2Reason that sounds like them. Yeah. Yeah .
Speaker 3They scare me. Everyone else, honestly, kind of the norm for a lot of companies is the lawsuit is such bad image, you know what I mean? Like, there was the movie , uh, concussion with Will Smith, where they didn't have any permission to use any of the NFL imagery, any of it . They had not gotten like any licensing to be like, we're gonna use F NFL logos and we're gonna have like team offices cuz they knew the f l would look so bad suing a production company that's making a movie about CCE e Right. Just the politics of it is just horrible, you know, narrative for like, public discussions or at least they perceived that. And that was what that production was betting on. Cuz the guy who directed it used to be a journalist and he was like, well, they're just gonna have to sue us. Um, and the NFL didn't, you know, so mm-hmm. <affirmative> that , that seems to be what a lot of people approach this with. I mean, this is true. If you fight it, you know, you're just gonna have the Stride end effect we're Streisand effect where now that you're doing it, no . Everyone's like, wait, why are you trying to hide the fact that you worked with Nazis? Like, you could kind of fall on the sword a little bit here. It was like 80 years ago. And to be clear, I , I think the important thing to remember is this is just kind of an exploration of corporatism with, you know, fascist power and injustice. This is something that goes on. I don't , I don't necessarily think this is an indictment that General Motors currently holds Nazi sympathies. Like, I don't, I don't perceive that to be true. That like everyone is dead and gone. Not to say that General Motors is like practicing incredibly ethical, you know, corporate practices, but the, you know, the underlying behaviors, like in these times of uncertainty where incredibly unjust things could be new to us. It's like this injustice doesn't one stop huge capital entities from making very serious material decisions that affect the life and wellbeing of other people. And also when they make these decisions, it doesn't really enter the public consciousness, right? We're not like, oh, this company does something that imposes upon the rights and wellbeings of others in a way we would never accept for ourselves. Because it's just outside the domain of knowledge. It's outside people's sense of perception. You know, you can't abstract the world to like, I look great and close that were made by starving children in Bangladesh, right? Like I'm, it's not like I went to Bangladesh and took the clothes and then just like ate rice in front of some kid who was malnourished. You know, I'd feel very differently if I had to do that to get laid on Tinder.
Speaker 2The ethical, the ethical concerns that Justin laid out, like the , my, in my world, in the academic world, there are whole academic journals de like dedicated to discussing these topic . You know, the philosophical theories are constructed about , you know, how, how corporations forget or remember selectively and how that affects their marketing strategy and stuff. And the thing is, like, like a very small group of people read these and you know, people ask me, why didn't you just write a book? Right? Uh, I wrote a dissertation. I did write a a book , um, so to speak. But for me to , um, to get this out into the public consciousness was way more, way more important. I mean, these, what people see on screens and hear about in mass media is really what, what informs their views of the world. You know, something I encounter all the time. Yeah . Senator Silverman even wrote a song about, you know, like the Jewish people, they don't wanna drive German cars, right? And there's some truth to that and stuff. And me, I'm sitting with this knowledge that like, no, actually the car company that actually contributed far more than any other car company in the world was an American car company in General Motors. You know, like that's really , uh, you know, if you don't wanna , you're gonna, if you're gonna have a boycott or give , give somebody attitude cuz you see them driving a particular vehicle. Like, and, and it's like, yes, I've, I've contributed a lot of scholarship that I've probably only a handful of people have read again, you can go find it. Um, but um, like if you, if you tell that story on screen , you know that the , you know, the head of General Motors was kind of vacillating. He was kinda like, should I do business with them? Should I not? And like kind of makes a decision. You've got , he's got one guy who's kind of a true believer, Nazi, another guy who's maybe a little more savvy and like, these are, these are stories that are, that are much more compelling I think and told in kind of a public history , uh, sort of way to use that term that we've been, we've been digging into a little bit , uh, ej
Speaker 3Yeah. And just from the perspective of the story, you know, we got a Jewish F B I agent who's digging through all this, and the one, the audience PB character, right? He's the one who's, who's discovering this in his own sense of identity as both Jewish and American. So he , I mean, it's the questions and the disbelief and the challenges of having to figure out what these people were doing in this time where, and this is, I mean, you gotta remember like 1940 was the time of really high patriotism. So it's to challenge patriotism or well nationalism, like at that moment in history was, was really, really difficult for people.
Speaker 1And so what do you want the audience to really take wave when they watch SHA on Wall Street?
Speaker 2I've got ideas, but Justin, you go first.
Speaker 3One of the difficult things I remember Zana Fhi is a sociologist at U N C and she writes a lot about narrative. Um, it's a lot easier to think someone's a horrible person to do something wrong. And it's a lot harder to think, well, what would be the circumstances that would make me do that thing in that moment? You know? So even if you're talking about something as reprehensible as Nazism, right? If a hundred people , percent of people you knew were Nazis, you would just be a Nazi, right? If you literally had never met, well, that might be out for me and Jay for those listening. I'm Pacific Islander, so I'm, I'm quite cinnamon , uh, in my, in my complexion , um, and Melan nation . But, you know, if everyone I knew was like reprehensible fascist and the only reality I knew was reprehensible fascism, I would be a reprehensible fascist. Like I, the, the influence of others, like the ocean of ideas that were hitting these people , um, were incredibly damaging to their understanding of how to be decent to others in the world. Which is very similar to I think what people go through now , um, where it's like, yeah, enough poverty and hostility and, and hopelessness and misinformation that confirms to my bias and enough propaganda. Like, yeah, I'd fall victim to these ideologies where I might lash out at others. I mean, it really is like, you have to build a firewall to the amount of anger that you get hit with every day . Yeah, and I think the one thing about telling a period piece that's always really important is the , the temporal displacement. Like, the fact that you can look at the past and be like, oh no, this is just something that's true of people like humanity fundamentally as biological organisms moving through the world, is that they are vulnerable to these things and they are vulnerable to these hostilities of propaganda's. Um, and it's really hard to look at that and not think like, wow, you're just a broken person, as opposed to like, no , it's just a broken system that was really, really great 200,000 years ago when we evolved to live in the Serengeti. And now we all have smartphones and you can blame your problems on Mexicans and Chinese people and black people are lazy. You know, whatever, whatever reprehensible, inaccuracy that makes you feel like, yeah, I'm good, they're bad. Like, that's such a hit in our minds. And the , the distance to look back with a mirror on Nazism and be like, no, no, no, we were having the same struggle with Nazism. And it's like, well, we all agreed now that Nazi's bad. It's like, no, no, no. But you gotta understand when you see something new that's bad, you don't know it's bad. You just know it's new and sometimes it might be good for you and horrible for everyone else, and that's, you'll run yourself into a prison just of your own anger. Um, and I think that's, that's the the lesson I want people to learn.
Speaker 2If you were a person on the street , uh, at a moment , uh, where fascists are everywhere, you don't know if your , uh, democracy is gonna survive. Uh, it's not clear if you're talking about 1940 or 2020, you know , uh, and, and that there's these, these parallels we can draw , uh, between, between the two and that, you know, hi histories, utility, his we've talked about is for people to, yeah. Ref , as Justin said, you reflect upon the past, you have some temporal displacement , uh, so that it informs your, your view of the future.
Speaker 1What was your biggest surprise that you uncovered when making this project?
Speaker 3I learned a lot about the fbi . So my cousin's an FBI agent, and we were talking about Jews in the fbi and I was like, are there any history of Jewish people working for the fbi ? And she told me that you can't discuss your religion at the fbi . Like , um, it's, it's against company policy. I don't know if , or, you know, the , the bureau policy, I dunno if, I don't think the FBI exists as a corporation, but anyway , um, but this idea of identity being kind of removed from investigation I thought was really interesting. Cuz the , I I generally agree with that principle, right? But when you're dealing with something that's based in identity, and especially one of the other things we haven't touched on is the FBI was pretty nascent at this point. Yeah . So we think of it now mainly as kind of like a higher level police . And for at least I know we're at a difficult junction with law enforcement in this country, and I have my very strong feelings about that, I'll admit. Um, but just to speak to my cousin and her husband who both worked for the fbi , they were like tracking NACO terrorists, right? Like my cousin's husband specifically told me once, he was like, yeah, they never send me after anyone, at least un unless that person has killed at least 10 people. And I was like, whoa, dude. Like, that's okay. Like, I kind of can't, when you're talking about like, yeah, I , I only mess with serial killers. I'm like, all right , bro. Like, I feel like I'm okay with you having the gun in the badge, at least for this one dude. But this idea of, at the time , um, the FBI didn't really know who they were, where it was like, do you want to get into espionage and jig or Hoover was really like, no, no, no, I'm, I mean, he is kind of a megalomaniac, like, like a lot of successful people. He is, I think pretty narcissistic. I'm , I'm trying to learn more about him, but like, he doesn't seem like the healthiest dude I've ever come across, right? Like, I'm not dealing with, you know, the dramatization of Nelson Medela here. Um, but he was very interested in having huge political influence internationally and in the shape information of the world based on intelligence and essentially conversion and covert operations, which ended up being the realm of the cia. So Jagar Hoover really wanted to be like the head of the CIA with the fbi . Like that was his big motivation, which is really hard for I think the ethical and personality disposition of our characters, but also I think of f FBI agents, right? Because when , when I think about, I mean, I know two f FBI agents, I'm related to one of 'em , right? And for them in particular, like, they're very practical. I only want to get involved if it's like harm to wellbeing of people that is structurally cataclysmic, right? Like talking about massive works of violence, acts of violence against people. And that's, I'm not gonna get into the ethics and politics of, you know, like the drug trafficking and, and the world we live in with that, but at least to their sentiment, they're not like, I'm really worried about the elections and the Israel Palestine territories. Right. You know, I mean, that's not something to their personality. Again, not to get into the politics there, but if you were in the C I A , you would be very interested in the outcomes of the elections of Syria, or you know, like what's going on with the political situation like Azure , Baja , and can you influence that? And I think that's a really big challenge of like, I'm involved in what does it mean to be involved in the maintenance and enforcement of justice in a society? And that's a really difficult question right now. Right? And what does it mean to want to shape the events and futures of the ideas and operations of people and government? You know, that was, that was something that was happening within the organization and it's a very institutional story , um, unlike let's say something like Breaking Bad where it's, you know, very protagonist driven , right? I mean, that's a good example of a TV show where like, it is about Walter White, it's about the people in Walter White's life, if he runs against an organization, they're like shadowy. You kind of dunno who they are. You know, you just know they have a lot of money and you're like making meth under a , you know, like a , a , you know, carwash. Like this is very much not that this is the story of places. This is the story of companies. This is the story of countries and political parties and institutions and powerful institutions and their ideas and how they shape society and the lives of, of millions of people. You know, were being decided by this handful of people in these boardrooms at the time. You know, I mean, it was like a couple people who decided, yeah, you know, what GM's gonna make the planes that are gonna bomb London . You know, that was what, like six people, right? Uh , there
Speaker 2Was a , there was a committee. I got some of those records.
Speaker 3Yeah . So there's this committee of people,
Speaker 2We talked a lot about how they could do it euphemistically.
Speaker 3Yeah. So there's this committee of people in all these boardrooms, or maybe like Henry Ford where it's a privately owned company who are making decisions for the efforts and resources of literally millions. Um, and the scale of that being told in scenes, right? I mean, turn on your tv, people are gonna say things, they're gonna have opinions, they're gonna change their minds and they're gonna make decisions. That is, that is a dramatic dialogue scene that is go on Netflix, that is what you're watching. But in this story, you know, it, it decides the fate of the world. That was, that was crazy.
Speaker 2And there's two , there's two really interesting threads I wanted to pull on here. Yeah. One is, yeah . Um, yeah, we have this idea of , uh, intelligence agencies and, and how they fit into the, the larger institutional structure in the United States and how it affects the world. But yeah, it's like, this is like kind of the birth of, of this large kind of system. I mean, yeah, the f b I was like a mom and pop shop 1940 when , when this story takes place, really the year where they just start hiring legions of, of new agents and grow into the, you know, the massive kind of structure we have today. The c i a didn't even exist, you know, we're watching it basically be born at the same time, Hoover is competing against the people who are trying to form the O Ss cuz you know, both groups kind of want to be the premier intelligence agency, not just domestically, but internationally in the world. And so you get to kind of watch that unfold in real time as it's happening, kind of as the background of this drama between this agent and this spy , uh, you know, and, and , uh, this cat and mouse game. The other thread I really wanted to pull on is , I, I meant to mention this earlier with like, you know, what , what do people take away? Uh , when we also made a decision early on , um, uh, Justin, I think you, you helped me with this, or we talked about this. Like, I was thinking about breaking bad and, and how it seems , uh, uh, some of the , uh, American viewing population kind of , uh, uh, took it took it maybe not the way it was meant to be intended that Walter Wade is not the hero <laugh>, you know? And it took a while, you know, it's like, it's like, do we make our Nazi spy the center? Cuz that was where we started. It took the discovery of our, of our kind of , um, protagonist , uh, kind of emerged later, you know? But yeah, it was like , um, wanting to, wanting to not make the Nazi the , the main character, but actually the person trying to hunt them down the main character.
Speaker 3Yeah. I think one of the things , uh, I'll just speak as a writer in the entertainment industry and like how people talk about the entertainment industry now is just cuz the Charact character's the focus point and the protagonist doesn't necessarily mean they're a hero,
Speaker 2Right?
Speaker 3Right. So yeah, Walter White, I , I put Don Draper in here too. Like, you're not supposed to sympathize with them , but you are supposed to learn from them , you know? Right , right . I mean , if you go back to a lot of Greek mythology, it's very , um, and a lot of like moral Christian plays, like the Christian moral plays. It's, it's a lot of , uh, fable as warning, you know, or as exploration of how these things happen. So if you depict, like depiction is not approval, right? So if I depict how someone becomes a Nazi, I'm not saying you should become a Nazi. I'm just saying be aware of how people become Nazis so that you can stop it again. It's a lot easier to be like, well, they're just bad people. Um, and some people are, you know, some people just drew cards at the deck where they do not do not understand or cannot make decisions based on the feelings and wellbeing of others. And those people are terrifying, right? <laugh> . But for other people it's like, yeah, no, there's a road some people can go down where it just hurting others feels like you're protecting yourself and people you care about. And that's really the great danger of our history, you know what I mean? That's, yeah . When you look at intense ethnic conflicts of any sort, an intense identity conflicts, that's usually how it happens. It's like, man, I feel like the only way I can defend people I care about, that's like Russian being the Ukraine. Like if you talk to a Russian soldier, they really think the Ukraine is overrun with Nazis and they are saving Ukraine. That is not true, but that is what they think and that's why they're doing it. Um, and if you're vulnerable to that, and if people are vulnerable to that, and if you know someone vulnerable to that, you know, that's the road they go down. Whereas all of a sudden it's like, wow, you are the great force of instability and justice and harm in the world right now. You know, probably be the Russian invasion of Ukraine, right? That would be one I pick
Speaker 2For anyone , uh, in the industry who's listening to this. Perhaps, perhaps you've received a pitch from us , uh, and you're going back and you're checking out this podcast for the first time. You know, where , uh, one of the things that , uh, I spent many years , uh, studying was like, okay, well what is the timeline for this series of bad decisions from going from, you know , uh, presented with a scenario you have a lot of power to, oh no, I'm actually helping enable the Nazis , uh, inflict their, a massive war machine on all of Europe. Uh , you know, and there's this path in between and, and yeah, the path really diverges depending on who you're talking about. Him , it's Henry Ford. Well , you know, he , he's really , uh, he is really invested in the Nazi cause, but if you're somebody like , uh, maybe the c e O of Texaco, this thing kind of blows up in your face and you weren't seeing it coming at all, you know? So it's a , it's a way for us to kind of, kind of show those series of bad decisions that have been kind of mystified in, in our culture , uh, really, really , um, open and much more in a , in a kind of historically accurate way.
Speaker 1So what is the, the future for a Nazi and Wall Street project? What are the next steps that you have planned out and, and what are the next steps that you hope to achieve here?
Speaker 3Well, the ultimate, I think later this year, we will embark on every writer's favorite Quest <laugh> , which is the journey for more money. That is, you know , we try to get these funded . Uh , I am directing our proof of concept, so we will have that edited for , to help try to elicit interest and support. But mainly what we want and need is enough groundswell to get people who know how to make and produce really quality television interested in the story. This is a period piece based in 1940 that deals with a lot of people. That is a very expensive statement. I work in film , um, adjacent, but I, you know, I'm around the film industry. I mean, we're talking, this story would need thousands of people to tell it. It would need costume rentals from something that's almost a century ago. It would need cars that you rent that you know, are specially curated in ancient, it would need CG and like animators working, you know, hundreds of hours to make skylines and planes dropping blocks . It would need, you know, great direction lighting to capture the atmosphere. I mean, it really needs it . I mean, it really has to be, you know, one of the great shows on television in order to justify the budget. It demands just to , for the story to be executed. And that's how some things are. I mean, that's how Game of Thrones was forever. Um, or Cher Noble , um, or , you know, that wouldn't be true of breaking bad . Everything's in the desert. He's just driving an rv, you know, I mean, one of the most cost efficient shows of all time, in my opinion. But for this one, I mean, this is, it's an epic . It , it sh it has to be one of the great shows in television for it to work.
Speaker 2Yeah. So , um, w we're we're going on a path that many others have gone before. We're assembling a , a pitch package. We've been sharpening our, our pilot script for a long time now. Um, I , uh, I've written a show Bible. Um, we're , uh, we're producing a , uh, a pitch deck that , uh, yeah , just said it's gonna have a pro , a very short proof of concept, a short film that we , uh, we actually had a successful Kickstarter for last year. Um, there's gonna be visual effects , um, basically as much as we can muster with the , with a <laugh> , the very modest zero budget. And, you know, the, the , the very small amount of , uh, small Kickstarter that we got, basically, that's it. Um, and , uh, and our own sweat , uh, to put this package together and then start getting it , uh, to , uh, the places that do prestige tv , uh, and to , uh, make the case and convince them , uh, uh, and , uh, I guess I would be remiss to say that, you know , uh, if you think this story is interesting, go and tell people about it. Tell 'em to listen to this podcast, <laugh> , tell 'em to check out elusive hype films.com. You know , um, we we're gonna need, it is gonna take , uh, it is gonna take a ground swell , uh, to make this happen. And , uh, and, and , uh, I wouldn't be here right now if I didn't believe , uh, with every fiber of my being that, that we're gonna be able to do this.
Speaker 4A Nazi on Wall Street is brought to you by elusive films maker of the a Nazi on Wall Street's film and television series. It was recorded and edited by EJ Russo. Original music was written and performed by Joseph Mulhallen . We can't bring these stories to life on screen without your support. So please consider donating to our crowdfunding campaign@elusivefilms.com. That's elusive hyphen films.com. For Jason Wexel Baum, I'm EJ Russo. Thank you, and we will see you next episode.