High & Low: Bela Lugosi

George and Ryan discuss the tumultuous career of the man who became famous as cinema's Dracula- Bela Lugosi. Career HIGHS like White Zombie (1932) and LOWS, Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952)

Transcript

Speaker 2 0:17

Welcome to my creep joint. We are here with the second installment of our ongoing series High and Low, which we did a couple months back with another great actor, tony Curtis. We are back today with the second installment for one of my personal favorite actors of all time, the one, the only, bela Lugosi. I am Dracula, the master of fear, the master of terror from the golden age of cinema. George, how, how you doing?

Speaker 3 0:46

I'm doing well, ryan. Thanks for leading the way here on this episode. This is one you've wanted to do for a very long time and you said that Bela is one of your favorite actors of all time. Can you explain his appeal? I know that he has sort of appeal as far as sort of a lurid, sad hollywood story goes, and obviously he was the famous dracula for all time on screen, but I'd be interested to hear your first experience with him and why you count him amongst one of your favorite actors sure.

Speaker 2 1:21

So I think it goes back to the fact that there's a select group of specific horror icons from the Golden Age.

Speaker 2 1:30

Among them Lugosi, boris Karloff and then Peter Lorre, basil Rathbone is even included in there Lon Chaney Sr and Jr.

Speaker 2 1:40

But there's something very special about Bella because he often did not get the respect and credit that I think he deserves and I think, looking back, there's been a re-appreciation of his career and of his work to say that there is something there more than people gave him credit for when he was on the scene, because you mentioned his story is a very tragic one.

Speaker 2 2:05

I mean someone of obvious talent that had many hurdles to overcome in terms of his, I would say the language barrier was definitely one of them, for being a foreigner who had to learn English, famously recited many of his lines phonetically that he didn't maybe quite even understand what he was saying, and quickly was built up very fast. He had a meteoric rise with his appearance in dracula in 1931 onto the movie scene and then was like quickly discarded soon after and became something of a joke, and he was a very serious actor. He he took all of his work very seriously and always put in his best work as much as he could. We'll see in the second movie that we're going to be discussing that I mean, obviously he was a very sick and frail man at that point so it was hard for him. But I think there's definitely a lot more than meets the eye when it comes to Bela Lugosi.

Speaker 3 3:03

So the two films we're going to watch today are Ryan's picks. That he believes demonstrates a career trajectory of Bela Lugosi from high with the 1932 film White Zombie, to low with the 1952 film. Bela Lugosi meets a Brooklyn gorilla, and we'll find out if it lives up to its title or not or to its reputation as one of the worst movies ever made. I was watching a documentary on Bela Lugosi before the show to kind of prepare, and I think one of the major hurdles to his success was his overt sexuality. And I think that the Dracula story has always been a very sexually provocative story. I mean initially it was sort of preying on fears of 19th century Londoners of foreigners stealing British women.

Speaker 3 3:58

And Bela Lugosi had quite a successful career on the Hungarian stage. He played Hamlet, he played romeo, shakespeare's romeo, and he just lit the stage on fire with his sexual prowess. And there was this almost like animal, dangerous sexuality about him that I think his biggest problem was he was always pushing against somewhat his typecasting as this monster actor when he wanted to do romance. But I don't think his brand of romantic sexuality was something that american audiences were necessarily ready for. So when he gets offered roles in frankenstein as the monster he turns it down now. I heard a historian say monster, he turns it down Now. I heard a historian say that, in his opinion, had Lugosi taken on that Frankenstein role, which was obviously so famously embodied by Boris Karloff, his career might have gone differently. Do you agree with that?

Speaker 2 4:56

Well, from what I read also, there's some debate as to whether or not that story is actually true. James Whale, I think, at some point said that he never offered Lugosi the part, but let's take that as it may. Yeah, it's certainly possible. But it's also certainly possible that he might have been typecast even more as a horror actor and never been able to escape that regardless. So I guess maybe his fortune would have been better served by actually staying in work and making a sustainable living as an actor, rather than being gobbled up by Poverty Rose Studios where he had to work to survive. He might have gotten a little bit more prestige by doing horror films for major studios, but we'll never know.

Speaker 3 5:42

Karloff was famously quite the Lotharia with the women in real life, even if they weren't ready to show him that way on screen. He dated extensively Clara Bow, who was like the screen idol icon of the 20s and 30s, and he was married five times. He had quite the tumultuous love life. And I wonder, married five times? He had quite the tumultuous love life. And, um, I wonder, do you think that there would have been a place for him as a sort of matinee idol? I don't think so. I think that the people were looking for charm. I think of a film that was shot like at the same time as white zombie uh, similar time frame, only angels have wings and I thought of that because it also has a tropical locale, like the film we're going to talk about first, white Zombie, and I always appreciate tropical localities in early black and white films, but he's no Cary Grant, he's much more dangerous.

Lugosi's Sexuality and Typecasting

Speaker 2 6:39

Sure, and I think certainly he benefited from having that exotic, foreign veneer to him. For Dracula that was perfect casting at the perfect time, like right opportunity for him at the time and I don't think they necessarily knew what to do with him afterwards in a studio like Universal. He certainly did other movies that were of the horror genre after that, like Murders in the Rue, m room org and the like, but it just wasn't. It wasn't um, typecasting was a very different animal back then. I think as well that we don't really appreciate today. And certainly people who came after him, who became horror stars, embraced it in a different way because the world had changed where the audience and the genre became more respectable and there became more of a cult following. So still kind of assorted and dirty, you know genre in this time in the 1930s. So I think that also plays a part into why he was not able to make a bigger splash after that.

Speaker 3 7:39

You're a big fan. I feel, like with Bela Lugosi, that every role he played subsequent to Dracula was playing on his Dracula persona. He's a mad scientist. He's a ringleader of evil, as we see in this film White Zombie. Was there ever a role he played that was not capitalizing on Count Dracula?

Speaker 2 8:01

Well, I mean he typically played villainous roles. That was the major, you know, aspect of his career. I would say the black cat is somewhat of an um outlier there. The black cat is is he's not exactly a altruistic, heroic character by any means, but he is the anti-hero protagonist, more so than the truly malicious, diabolic Karloff character in that movie. And it's sad because Karloff does get top billing in the Black Cat and it's actually Lugosi's movie. He is the main character, he gets more to do, he is the quote unquote hero of the movie and he just, you know, gets second banana, as always, and that would be the main one. He did some serials where he played Shandu the Magician as a heroic role, but nobody remembers that or cares about that. I mean, the better version of that is where he played Rocksaur, the villain in the Shandu the Magician movie, which if you've never heard of that or seen that, I highly recommend that. It's a really fun matinee film from the 30s as well and we love the black cat.

Speaker 3 9:08

We've talked about this before. That is an incredible movie. The set, design and cinematography of that film is unbelievable. It's todd browning film too, correct, I think no, edgar g olmer, I believe uh, got it the famous film noir guy, but that is a really unique and wild picture. I love that movie. The black cat way way too good for todd browning.

Speaker 2 9:25

Way too good for todd browning, as much as I love todd browning, I mean, there's a different style there and the art deco on display in the black cat is just marvelous.

Speaker 3 9:34

There's I give todd nothing, quite like it I give browning a lot of props because he made freaks, which is a film that I revisit often, is very interesting. But, um, yeah, with the black cat it would be a good double feature with, um, the devil rides out, which we talked about during our hammer horror episode, where we see christopher lee in the hero role finally getting to spread his wings a little bit, and, um, it's a shame that he and legosi were both always pigeonholed as villains.

Speaker 2 9:59

Um, there's a lot of overlap. There's a lot of overlap that you mentioned that with the Devil Rides Out, because both involve very, very similar motifs and themes about devil worship, Satanism, and it's again the dynamic between who is the hero, who is the villain, what we typically expect from these characters and these actors. So there's a lot of interesting parallels there.

Speaker 3 10:20

Some of the visuals in the Black Cat are just so incredible, so you guys all have to go out and watch it, if you're fans of film journal, if you're going to be disciples of the show, but uh, let's the dialogue in that movie too, is just so perfect.

Speaker 2 10:32

Everything is being enunciated with the most sinister intent from both characters and you can you can feel the passion and the hatred for each other. Maybe there was some actual hatred and tension between the actors for their jealousy over one another about, I think, more one-sided than the other, but it really sparkles in a way that none I mean. It's my favorite golden age horror movie.

Speaker 3 10:59

Well, there's this kind of like art deco, very like a modernist architecture, throughout the film and then the display of the satanic ritual and all the women who are kept below in the catacombs and suspended animation is just like an incredibly wonderful idea. And I brought up the black cat and I said, oh, we're doing Legosi. Well, obviously, the high, we can't do Dracula. Everyone will expect that that's a little too on the nose. Let's do black cat. And you said no, let's do White Zombie. And so I'm curious, ryan, why White Zombie?

White Zombie: An Underrated Horror Classic

Speaker 2 11:29

Well, it's a terrific film and it certainly doesn't get talked about enough. I mean, I don't know, had you ever seen this before?

Speaker 3 11:35

No, I had not.

Speaker 2 11:36

Okay, there you go. I mean this is a wonderful film and I think it goes under the radar a little bit more because it's not a universal film and so typically, when we think of golden age horror, especially from the 30s, the immediate, you know, reaction or thought that we have is universal. I think of Dracula, frankenstein, the mummy, et cetera, and the black cat and even the like, like that. But this was an independent picture produced by the Halperin brothers, who also are not probably not very well known nowadays.

Speaker 2 12:06

This was, this was probably their biggest movie, by any means, and it's a very sinister movie. It's pre-code, it has a lot of, there's a lot of visual flair to this. It's a great Lugosi performance. It is the first, if not the first, then certainly the most prominent early zombie movie in cinema history. It's very different, of course, than what we typically think of zombies today after George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, but his performance here and his character are certainly ones that should be mentioned in the pantheon of, like great 30s horror villains and horror icons, in my opinion it reminded me of an rko movie, sort of like the most, the most deadliest game, uh, with joel mccray.

Speaker 3 12:56

Um, but yeah, I mean what would be the next prominent zombie appearance? I walked with a zombie certainly yeah yeah, so which is?

Speaker 2 13:03

very much more like um. I don't know what would you call it, like a, like a thriller or a um yeah history or a romantic thriller, something like that, you know, but if we're doing.

Speaker 3 13:15

If we're doing the sort of the categorization of the zombie throughout history, it's much more in line with that movie and that it's sort of a haitian voodoo reanimation mind control thing, though I did notice at the very they do shoot the zombies and they don't die.

Speaker 2 13:29

Yes.

Speaker 3 13:30

Which is sort of more in line with the Romero version.

Speaker 1 13:33

Zombies. Yes, they are my servants. Did you think we could do it alone In their lifetime? They were my enemies. I know the witch doctor. Once my master Secrets I tortured out of him. One girded us wine swollen with riches. He fought against my spell. Something the last Even.

Speaker 2 14:05

Yet I have troubled height it plays off of the idea or the the conflict between what are these zombies they're? The movie never explicitly tells us whether or not they are reanimated corpses, for instance, or um, people who have had their, their minds and their wills taken from them by black magic. So it does toy with that. That idea, I think, by having them be shot point blank and not fall over and die, certainly leads it to a more mystical yeah, mystical aspect to it the undead, but we see legosi controlling them with his hands.

Speaker 2 14:40

Yes, yes, wellugosi, always had wonderful two, two wonderful things about his physical appearance, where his eyes, which are accentuated very much in this movie, both when we close in close in on him in, you know, close ups, but also his eyes are superimposed on background images in the movie, background images in the movie other, you know, far over the scenery, over the mountains and things like that. So they really played up that. And two are the hands which are also put to use in Dracula, famously in the scene where he attacks Van Helsing for the first time and he, you know, tells him come to me and he, you know, extends his hand and he, you know, tells him to come forward. So that was also just one of that's also playing off Dracula to a certain extent there.

Speaker 3 15:29

Well, the optical effect with his eyes being superimposed over our two leads as they ride in on the carriage. I don't remember that from the Todd Browning Dracula. I do remember it from the Francis Ford Coppola Dracula. He reuses that same effect when Keanu Reeves is on the train on his way to Transylvania and I thought that was very fun. So obviously Coppola is a fan of this film.

Speaker 3 15:53

I really enjoyed it. I thought it was really cool. I mostly enjoyed it for the set design and the matte paintings and the special effects. Bela Lugosi's Seaside Castle is incredible. There's basically sort of two wide-angle locales where we get a shot which is his grand ballroom with a piano, which is unbelievable, and then the exterior shot with the ocean and the waves in the background and that stairway and it's just incredible. And also the sets of the Haitian sugar plantation where the zombies are mindlessly pushing the you know the little wheel around to grind up the sugar. I don't know. However you do it, however you make sugar. I mean, it's um. It's really an impressive, beautiful looking, cool movie, so I did enjoy it that's it.

Speaker 2 16:39

That's, those are two great great points you make. The staircase on the exterior of the mountain, which for like logistical or practical sense probably makes no sense at all, that that's designed like that, but it is just breathtakingly designed for cinematic purposes, especially for the climax of the film which takes place on this plateau, where people can be pushed off, fall to their death in the most dramatic way possible. So that's excellent. And two, the scene where you mentioned where the zombies are, you know, grinding up the sugar cane with the wheel. There is no music in that scene. It is so effectively disturbing and haunting through that you just see them like almost in a silent picture, just slowly, mindlessly performing their tasks. So much to the point where one is injured and falls into the sugar cane grinder and is just ground up with with the sugar cane and no one notices or cares because they're all mindless zombie slays. And it's frightening, it's disturbing.

Speaker 3 17:43

How much of this film do you think is is trying to be an analogy for sort of labor relations in the early 20s?

Speaker 2 17:49

well, it's certainly possible. I mean, you can, you can, you can draw a lot of real world parallels and conclusions here.

Speaker 3 17:55

So it's uh, there's a lot you can do with it um, the plot of the movie is basically we have our two good or good couple an honorable guy and his wife always the most bland vanilla, quite clean.

Speaker 2 18:10

You know, you get this in dracula, you get this in the black cat, you get this in all 30s and thank god it's not david manners, though I'll say that because he's in all those, all the other ones I just mentioned this guy, okay, and then they go to the house of his boss.

Speaker 2 18:26

No, no this is probably the only little plot hole or thing you could quibble with, is they? Um, they don't know this guy, okay, so Madeline, the fiance she meets, a Beaumont is his name. She meets Beaumont on the ship from New York to Haiti and, you know, obviously, you know, probably, was nice to him and he took it to fact that she's probably interested and so he invites her and her fiance. Why don't you come to my estate in Haiti when you arrive and you can get married at my mansion? It's beautiful here, you know, and I'll, you know, I'll give your boyfriend a job for me because I'm a nice guy, you know. And so they go there.

Speaker 3 19:09

And, of course, he has nefarious plans of his own for Madeline go there and, of course, he has nefarious plans of his own for madeline, which is to enlist bella legosi, who makes a sort of devil's bargain to hypnotize madeline into falling in love with him. Then she seemingly dies. And also just great cinematography. I mean the scene where she seemingly dies. They bury her in the coffin, they take her down to the the creepy sepulcher and they park her coffin in this little tunnel and were able to see, through this almost crescent moon shape, four or five figures standing over her and contemplating her death, which is just a very striking shot. It's very cool. Yeah, haiti is beautiful this time of year. Come to my creepy estate. Thank you, parker, appreciate that very much.

Speaker 2 19:52

Yeah, precisely so did you catch the name of lugosi's character, which I think is also one yeah, I, I looked it up because I thought I heard it wrong.

Speaker 3 20:01

But his name is like claude murder or something no, no, no, even better, it's murder legendre murder legendre. Hello, yes, murder legend.

Speaker 2 20:12

If that's not the name of a great villain, I mean, I don't know what is.

Speaker 3 20:16

Murder Legendre. I love when he is showing off his coterie of former enemies who he has now enslaved to be zombies. What do you think Give me your impression of Lugosi's performance in this.

Speaker 2 20:28

Oh, this is one of his top tier performances. For all, bets and purposes. Yeah, this is one of his top tier performances by for all, for all, bets and purposes. Yeah, this is top tier. Also, the makeup effects are very minimalistic but extremely effective here. Okay so, and then Jack Pierce actually did have a hand in in doing the makeup effects for for murder, legendary character.

Analyzing Lugosi's Performance and Style

Speaker 2 20:46

So what it is, it's, it's the widow's peak, it's the little goatee you know devilish goatee beard and accentuation of the eyes. There's, there's not much to it, but it's a very distinct look. It looks different than dracula, certainly, but it's, it's very disturbing. If you saw this, if you're familiar with the movie and you saw this later, you would, you would instinctively identify it with white zombie. You wouldn't say, oh, that's lugosi from dracula, that's lugosi from the Black Cat or whatever. It's like. This is the white zombie look. In terms of his performance, again, it's I'd say it's top tier, but it's like he doesn't have. You know, as much as I love him there's, there's not a whole lot does best, which is a very slow, deliberate, accentuated dialogue that is very creepy, it's haunting, but it gets the job done and a lot of it is the body language and the kind of vibes that he gives off with it absolutely.

Speaker 3 21:49

He's always seems like he's very much in control, which is cool and good for a master, you know yeah, you know, I feel like so many villains nowadays. I think we can even look at james gunn superman, which we did like oh yeah if you're curious about our opinion, we talked about it on low res wonderbread's movies podcast.

Speaker 3 22:08

You can check it out there. Uh, I think I did a post about it on the page if you guys are interested. But every villain now is just always yelling and screaming and yelling. And Lugosi was always a guy who was in control until obviously he gets done one better by our heroes in this movie and outsmarted, but he never lost his cool.

Speaker 2 22:29

No, certainly not, and I think what I really like about movies like this is the 30s pre-code era has a very unique feel and charm to it that has never been replicated after that in terms of horror movies, right when Universal starts ramping up their cycle again for movies like the Wolfman and the Mummy sequels, etc. They have a very slick feel to them. They feel very corporate. They're great movies, to be sure, but there's something about these raw early 30s horror movies that have a stillness, a pseudo-silent feel to them that just makes them almost otherworldly, and that is part of the charm about watching a movie like this too.

Speaker 3 23:17

I agree with you on that because in the early sound films the sound always feels kind of distant and I mentioned tropical thirties films before. But you really do feel like in the 1930s if you were to go to any kind of tropical locale, be it South America or Haiti or any Island, that you really would be on an adventure. Your tether to civilization would be very slight. So it feels like you are in a remote, shadowy, scary place. And I also appreciate the scope of these older films. I talked um the sets of the sugar plantation of some of these massive houses. I think we see in later films more of a two-shot mentality where the camera is always on the actors. They hesitate to go wide in this way. That shows off a set that really gives you an atmospheric feel like you get in the hybrid set slash matte painting rooms that were in this film, which are just like incredible.

Speaker 2 24:18

It's as close as you can get to reading an old 19th century gothic novel is to watch a 1920s or 30s motion picture horror film oh yeah, and I think they were certainly very pleased with what they had to work with here on this low-budget independent movie, where they were using a lot of standing sets at Universal Lot, for instance, those interior sets of the Beaumont Mansion, for instance.

Speaker 2 24:44

A lot of those were pre-existing from Universal Films. So I think they were very, very pleased that they were able to get their hands on that and so they show that off to inflate, you know, the monetary value of the film, I think, which, to great effect, I mean certainly, and then, like you mentioned, the matte shots outside does create a completely different world and certainly also about, you know, the exotic location of the movie. I mean it's fascinating because Haiti is not that far away from mainland United States. But in this time period in which it's set, you're completely divorced and disconnected from the Western world. At this point, there's no one to come and help you besides Dr Bruner, the kindly and saintly missionary, who's there to even talk to or have someone to figure out. What can we do, or is there even something going on?

Speaker 3 25:46

Did you pick this movie? Because the plot so closely parallels? Bela Lugosi meets a Brooklyn gorilla, in which we also have characters stranded on an island who have to seek refuge in a big castle, with Bela Lugosi meets a Brooklyn gorilla in which we also have characters stranded on an Island who have to seek refuge in a big castle with Bella Lugosi.

Speaker 2 25:59

I didn't think about that at the time. But okay.

Speaker 3 26:01

Well, before we get to that movie, I would just want to ask you if you have any other thoughts on white zombie. I had a career question on a Lugosi for you.

Speaker 2 26:09

Yes, hold on, let me see Actually yes, hold on, let me see.

Speaker 3 26:17

Uh, actually I think I should. Oh, I forgot to ask you have you got a match right? That was cool, yeah, a little bit.

Speaker 2 26:20

Yeah, that was supposed to be the. The comedic aspect of the film is that it's very funny. Yeah, because there was a belief at the time that audiences could not maintain like a prolonged, um preponderance of terror, so they needed a comedy character to come in and lighten up the mood. So Dr Bruner fulfills that. I don't know how much he actually accomplishes that task.

Speaker 2 26:43

Also we did not mention probably one of the most technically impressive shots in the film, which is the scene where Dr Bruner and the boringcé talk about what their plan of action should be. If you notice, that scene is entirely done in one shot. It starts at one particular location. They dance around the room, you know showing them, talk, talking this. You know relatively what would otherwise be a boring expository scene, but done in a visual way that is interesting and then returns at the end to the same spot. So you know the movie actually does play with. It's not a standard, you know closeup, long shot it's. It's very elaborate.

Speaker 3 27:21

As well as the way it's um.

Speaker 2 27:23

It frames a lot of the images too Like. Especially the Florida lease is becomes a recurring visual motif in the movie. People are in the movie people are, people are framed within, like the the stairway archway of the florida lease and it's it's really interesting.

Speaker 3 27:38

You know there's a lot of visual stuff to enjoy I took a screenshot of that shot actually of her framed in the florida lee the crenellation of the wall in the castle and she also has a florida lee of sorts not exactly it's not like the, you know, the saints football team on her dress. So I was kind of looking into that to see if that was some kind of I know it's a religious icon of sorts. I know we see it in France and Haiti was a French colony if I'm not wrong. But it was interesting to see kind of visual motifs in these early films. They really had it all figured out back then, man. I mean there's not much more we've done except CGI. That's why I always cringe at the idea of young people being reticent to watch older movies because they did it all and actually you could watch a movie like this and get some ideas for something you could do on a relatively low budget or how to make a film.

Speaker 3 28:26

I really enjoyed it, man. I thought it was cool. Thank you to Parker Longbow for 10 bucks. Dude, damn, really appreciate that. Thank you. Yeah, that's awesome.

Speaker 2 28:36

This is definitely. You know, if you're looking for a golden age horror movie to recommend to people who may be getting into the you know the genre or getting into older films, I would certainly put this one near the top of the list because I think it holds up exceedingly well. It's not hokey, it's not campy. It's not hokey, it's not campy, it's not silly. It's a very serious, well-done, effective horror movie that I think still maintains a lot of its inherent horror. To be frank, there's something disturbing about watching this that it is creepy. It is disturbing.

Speaker 3 29:10

It's not silly. There's a great moment, too, with Bela Lugosi and the treacherous lover, in which he comes to regret his decision to possess this woman's mind, because seeing her now as this lifeless zombie is causing him a lot of consternation. And Bela Lugosi says well, how do you think her eyes will look when she awakens and realizes that you've done this to her Right?

Speaker 2 29:35

And I thought that was a very interesting moment, and then the tables are turned on him as Legendre seeks to make him a zombie. I've taken a great liking to you as well.

Speaker 3 29:48

You know, if you can't trust a guy named Murder Legendre, you know what is the world?

Speaker 2 29:53

Who can you trust? Who can you trust at that point Exactly?

Speaker 3 29:56

So let me ask you, bela Lugosi, what was his last real legitimate Hollywood effort before he was forced to work with Ed Wood at all?

Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla

Speaker 2 30:09

Well, that's an interesting question. Bela Lugosi meets a brooklyn gorilla is his. I mean, if you want to count that you, you technically can, because it's not a major hollywood film, but it is a poverty row semi-professional picture, okay, so yeah, I'm trying to think would it be, um, would it be like abedin costello meet frankenstein? I'm gonna look at his film which was what? 42, no, no, no that's late 40s, like 48 I want to say, or something like that oh, really okay so that would have been a comeback for him a little bit.

Speaker 3 30:39

But yeah, bela Lugosi meets a Brooklyn gorilla was produced by real arts films oh, for sure it was yeah, oh, I think I got a little delay here on you go ahead so I, so I would, I would say I would.

Speaker 2 30:56

I would say abedin castello meet frankenstein. Yeah, 1948, that was his last real film, because he made then. I've never seen this. Mother riley meets the vampire, and then bella lugosi meets a brooklyn gorilla, and then edward glenn, or glenda bride, bride of the Monster, the Black Sleep, plan 9. So yeah, ed and Costello.

Speaker 1 31:27

Which is, I think, a perfect way. If you had to end your career playing your iconic role of Dracula, reprising it and doing it in a picture like that, that's a great way. I don't want to repeat Frankenstein's mistake and revive a vicious, unmanageable brute. This time, the monster must have no will of his own, no fiendish intellect to oppose his master well and we love.

Speaker 3 31:42

We love the abacostella films. We might actually do a show on them for halloween time. But yeah, that's a movie that actually has real atmosphere, is fun, is legitimately funny. Uh, showcases the monsters in a sort of respectful way. It doesn't make them into a joke. Abbott and costello were always firmly the joke. Everything around them is cool and interesting, like in that museum. I mean, it's a, it's terrific.

Speaker 3 32:04

But this movie, bella lugosi meets a brooklyn gorilla, was produced by real arts pictures, which had some success by Real Arts Pictures, which had some success in the early 50s, licensing the old Universal horror movies and re-releasing them to drive-ins and such, and it was sort of reawakening a love amongst kids for these pictures. So henceforth, bela Lugosi was not big enough to actually star in a real Hollywood picture, but he could capitalize on his name and his name implying he's going to be fucking Dracula Right now. Bela Lugosi meets a Brooklyn gorilla is a horrible film and I don't mean that just in that all the story is bad or whatever. It's a chore to watch, partly due to the efforts of our Jerry Lewis impersonator and the fake Dean Martin. I mean this is shocking that they got away with this. The Bela Lugosi meets a Brooklyn gorilla is an effort to blatantly rip off Martin Lewis comedies, with two guys pretending to be Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin Ryan.

Speaker 3 33:15

Thank you very much for making me watch this. It took me four times to get through this. This is not a movie you sit down and turn on and enjoy. It's brutal Go ahead.

Speaker 2 33:28

It's intolerable. It's really, really painful to watch, and I say this as someone who usually loves these types of movies, because usually you can find a nugget or two of gold to pick up upon and really cherish in a movie like this. There is nothing in this movie. There is nothing. And it's sad because Bela looks very frail, very ill, during during this movie and he clearly needs money to live and he's making this movie and he just doesn't have it in him and it's it's.

Speaker 3 34:03

it's so sad it's like elder abuse, you know? Yeah, he's barely in it and at by this time, I think bella legosi was struggling with um painkillers he was a morphine addict yeah.

Speaker 3 34:15

He was the first actor in Hollywood to publicly confront his drug abuse problem, check himself into rehab, and he was made into a sort of mockery in the press to add insult to injury. But really unfortunate to see him here here. This movie is a piece of shit. And yeah, trembling color says. I wonder if the fake jerry lewis which ran what was his name in? The same movie hello sammy patrillo was as big of an asshole as the real one off screen I think the answer is yes.

Speaker 2 34:50

I think the answer is yes from what I've read.

Speaker 3 34:52

Okay, I think the answer is yes. I think the answer is yes From what I've read. Okay, I think the answer is no. I mean, obviously, to absolutely wholesale rip off somebody's like screen persona and just do it as your job would strike us today as like incredibly ballsy, I guess, if you were to put it that way, but really at the time he was a, if you were to put it that way, but really at the time he was an up-and-coming comic who did this Jerry Lewis impersonation and received a lot of laudits for it. I mean, I think he was only 19 when he made this, so he was trying to get into comedy. He met Jerry Lewis. Jerry Lewis signed him to his production company and then never gave him any work because he basically bought him put him on a shelf to kill his career.

Speaker 3 35:35

Now, I've never been a big jerry lewis dean martin movie fan. I don't find the jerry lewis bit to be very funny. However, he does do it with a little more finesse than this guy. I don't know if you guys have seen clips from this film. I don't know if I want to repurpose it, but half of the movie is I dokey with the most I mean it is, it is akin to torture watching this film this is the most southern fringe of the zamboanga group, the island of cola cola.

Speaker 1 36:06

Cola cola sounds like a commercial for some bubble water. How did we get here? Some of our men found you lying in the jungle and carried you here. Yeah, what are we all for? Carrying charges, getting carrying charges, funny line. Let's wrap it up here, lady.

Speaker 2 36:23

It is. It makes your ears bleed at a certain point. It's like the worst of Professor Frink from the Simpsons impression of Jerry Lewis. Do you know what I mean? Like that's what this is Horrible.

Speaker 1 36:34

Horrible, horrible. Don't mind my friend, he speaks in a vernacular. I do Gee Gee. I want a girl, just like the girl.

Speaker 3 36:44

Okay, what's the plot of this movie, ryan? I'm going to make you reiterate the plot of the film for the audience, please.

Speaker 2 36:50

The plot of Bela Lugosi meets a Brooklyn gorilla, which is a misnomer, because no such thing ever happens.

Speaker 3 36:56

I would argue that's not the case, but go ahead.

Speaker 2 36:58

Well, so anyway, two ne'er-do-wells who are comedy club performers. Somehow their plane crashes in the middle of the South Pacific and they are stranded on an island. This is our Martin and Lewis impersonators, sammy Petrillo and Duke Mitchell, who play themselves in the movie, which is rather interesting. I find that most interesting because the movie is called Bela Lugosi Meets the Brooklyn Gorilla, yet Bela Lugosi plays another character who is not himself, yet Duke and Sammy play themselves. So that was an interesting twist there. So they are now stranded on this island where they interact with the local natives.

Speaker 2 37:38

And of course, there is a diabolical scientist played by Lugosi on the island who is doing experiments in evolution, which is probably very cutting edge in this time period to have someone be doing experiments in evolution. You know, I was at the cutting edge of science, you know and so he pretends that he's going to help them return to civilization but instead ends up using one of them as an experiment to turn into a gorilla by means of de-evolution or something like that. So clearly they didn't even understand how evolution works. Even at that time, darlin's origin of the species was well elucidated on what evolution and natural selection were.

Speaker 3 38:20

So I'm not going to get into that, but um, not to get pedantic here, but technically he does meet as an interact with a gorilla who technically is from brooklyn considering duke mitchell is a brooklynite who gets transformed into a monkey and yes, there's a I don't know if it was him in the monkey suit having to suffer this, suffer through this, but he does a lot of I'm a monkey. But then he's able to sing, which is how he proves to sammy petrillo that he is in fact himself in the monkey suit, and hijinks ensue and there's basically three jokes in this movie. Um, one is that there's a hot Island gal who gets with Duke Mitchell. She's a little potty and she I went to your American schools because I have to be the queen of the Island and they wanted me to be smart. Yeah, yeah. Well, about that you know from Duke Mitchell. And then the other joke is her sister is rather rotund and they make all these horrible jokes at this actress's expense about how fat she is.

Speaker 1 39:24

This is Saloma. This is your sister, my baby sister, saloma. This is Sammy. Well, it's been nice knowing you so long, salami.

Speaker 3 39:34

And she chases around the Jerry Lewis stand-in and he says why are you like Tokyo? What have I doing? That's like half the movie, right?

Speaker 2 39:45

Yeah, half the movie is that. The other half of the movie is the Islanders talking in their fake native language to each other. As a joke, that we're supposed to laugh at.

Speaker 3 39:56

There's no translation that we're supposed to laugh at.

Speaker 2 39:58

There's no translation there's no, there's no like subtitles making you know, like funny, humorous, you know dialogue that they're exchanging or something like that. They're just talking nonsense, gibberish to each other and we're supposed to be like, oh, that's so funny.

Speaker 3 40:12

I actually did think it was funny when the guy with the big bird head started talking in weird, I didn't think that was funny. Oh, I totally forgot about the big bird headed guy.

Speaker 2 40:26

Yeah, there's a guy with a big bird head going ooga, booga, goo, goo, goo right and uh, that was you know. I mean you also didn't mention that, like the first, probably like seven to ten minutes of the movie is all just jungle stock footage with boring, bland narration, which is always a great, um great start to a movie. You know you're in for some good stuff when you start off with like 10 minutes of jungle stock footage yeah, raw moment says.

Speaker 3 40:45

I remember seeing the trailer for this on a compilation and even in two minute form. It was unbearable. Well, we watched the entire thing. It's like an hour 15, right hour 15 it's it, yes, it's.

Speaker 2 40:54

It's really short, but it goes. It feels like an eternity. Oh yeah, 74 minutes. I wrote down yeah, 74 minutes 74 minutes.

Speaker 3 41:02

yeah God, I hate that Sammy Petrillo man. I feel bad for the guy, but you came up with your own thing, dude.

Speaker 2 41:09

It's not really his fault, because there's something just uncanny about him that even his physical appearance is strikingly similar and even he's got that weird overbite. It's just unnatural how much he resembles him. So I mean you kind of gotta gotta give him credit.

Speaker 2 41:26

He took what I made uh, lemonade out of lemons there the other scene that I go ahead oh, I was gonna say um, this is not bella's first encounter with impersonators, though if, uh if you've ever seen there's a movie called zombies on broadway, that he made and that features rko's abbott and costello impersonators wally brown and alan carney, which is a much better movie than this yeah, so rk rko had their own abbott and costello um ripoffs, and so they made a movie with a Lugosi called Zombies on Broadway, which has a very similar plot, in that they go to the islands and they go to capture a real zombie and bring it back to a I think to a Manhattan nightclub or something like that, and Lugosi is the scientist and it's actually. It's actually not that bad.

Speaker 3 42:15

This is terrible from start to finish, but if you're looking for a better analog for this, you can go check out zombies on broadway there's an incredibly painful scene in which I really felt for legosi, where we find out that the hot native gal works for bella legosi, in subcapacity, has a laboratory on the island where he studies monkeys or something, and she leads them up there.

Speaker 3 42:38

There are two white men to see you right, which is of course interesting, and um, they come in and it's a wide shot of all four of them standing.

Speaker 3 42:46

They're sort of cheated out in a little semi-circle, but they're all standing there in a line and, um, our jimmy, jimmy patulo, you know whatever sammy patrillo jerry lewis says, he's looking right at bella lugosi and he turns to duke mitchell and goes boy, there's something I really don't like about this character. And then duke mitchell goes hey, would you be quiet, hey, shut up. And he's like, uh, he looks like, uh, you know, he looks like dracula. And then they walk up to it's all in the same shot. So within the universe of the film, this whole side antic comedy bit is happening and bella lugosi just has to, like, stand there and watch and pretend like it's not strange, as they sort of assess whether or not he's evil in real time and it's, um, it's horrible. It's like a fucking scooby-doo episode or something well, it's not even that good, so um what I would say, though, is what somebody mentioned earlier the comments about.

Speaker 2 43:43

Was this guy a real asshole in real life?

Duke Mitchell's Post-Gorilla Career

Speaker 2 43:46

And the reason I said yes initially is that, from from things that I've read, they were very kind of cruel to to bella on the set of this movie, in that they were kind of making fun of him, and also these guys were real jesters, so they were ad-libbing like crazy, and Bella was famously very serious on the set. He took even a shit movie like this as serious work, and so he was not able to keep up with ad-libbing and changing the dialogue. He needed his mark, he needed to know what to say and what to do, and so when you change things up, it becomes very frustrating for him, and so I didn't like that. Now when I watched the, there's a dvd of the movie where they have the special feature interview with sammy patrillo, and he talks glowingly about bella and how much he adored him and thought his family was lovely and all things like that. So I don't know what the truth is, and I I felt a little bad for kind of hating on him, but we don't know.

Speaker 3 44:40

What did you think of Duke Mitchell's singing interludes?

Speaker 2 44:43

Boring, Unnecessary. You know you're not going to top Dean Martin. I mean, come on, You're a cheap imitation. What's the point? You know?

Speaker 3 44:55

Did you do any research into Duke Mitchell's later career?

Speaker 2 44:58

Only what you sent me, so I'll let you take over for that.

Speaker 3 45:01

I looked into this character, Duke Mitchell, a little bit, who was the guy that was the Dean Martin stand-in, and apparently he did have somewhat of a successful career as a lounge singing act in California. Now, he never made it mainstream, but he claimed to be friends with some Sinatra. It sounds like perhaps he might have been juiced into the mob, which would not have been, you know, crazy for back then and he was known as the King of Palm Springs where he entertained people, and I was able to find many videotaped performances of him singing on YouTube. So he did have certain success because he directed two movies in the 70s which he was able to fund himself. Now I did not have enough time to watch these. He made two films Massacre, Mafia Style, and then Gone with the Pope, which was Looks incredible, looks incredible, by the way, the trailer.

Speaker 2 45:56

The trailer is unbelievable.

Speaker 3 45:58

I can't wait to see it. It's on Tubi, but I think I'm going to buy the DVD, the Blu-ray, because it looks incredible and it was never released at the time and it was discovered by Sylvester Stallone's son, who has since passed, but his company Grindhouse releasing and it was cleaned up the print and re-released and these movies look like fantastic. I can't wait to watch this picture but Duke Mitchell.

Speaker 2 46:21

Why would you bury? Why would you bury a movie like that? That looks fantastic.

Speaker 3 46:25

I don't know, but he produced them himself. I want to see both of them. And Duke Mitchell stars, acts and directs and writes. He wrote the scripts.

Speaker 2 46:34

He directed him, he started him. Well, that's the thing I mean. I think you can tell from this even though he's playing a dean, being a dean martin imposter here, he clearly has some talent to him. There's more there than what he's able to put forth in this movie. Sammy petrillo, yes, there's some talent, but it is entirely predicated on I look and sound like jerry lewis and I'm going to milk that till I have no more to give. So that. So that's really the truth of it. I don't think that you can say that Sammy Petrillo lacks any kind of talent. He certainly has something, although it is entirely predicated on just being that one-note imposter. I think Mitchell proved to the world that he did have something more to offer, which is nice.

Speaker 3 47:18

Why did anyone ever think jerry lewis was funny? I mean I, I don't know he's really funny in the king of comedy. So I mean, but like his little shtick that he did with dean martin is like terrible. I mean, maybe it was, I don't know, perhaps I have not seen enough of their films together.

Speaker 2 47:36

I prefer I I personally personally don't care for Dean Martin in the more comedic roles. I like him in more serious, dramatic work, which I think is is a much more interesting take for him.

Speaker 3 47:46

That's just my airport Airport's great. He's good, he's great in here.

Speaker 2 47:51

He's great in airport Come on.

Speaker 3 47:53

I've always liked Dean Martin. His Christmas songs are my favorite of all.

Speaker 2 47:56

Yeah, but how about in his Western roles like Rio Bravo and stuff like that? Yeah, I mean he's, he's good. I like him in dramatic roles.

Speaker 3 48:04

Yeah, he's, he's a, he's a very um likable and appear appealing character. And I think that Duke Mitchell is just too young in this movie to stand up to Dean.

Speaker 2 48:13

He's just a young guy obviously, obviously, and the romance is, is weak and the humor is. Um is also. Also to go back to the martin lewis thing, I mean in terms of comedy duos, I mean, that is, they're not going to rank on my uh, you know even top top five.

Speaker 2 48:29

I mean you're talking about abedin, costello or laurel and hardy. There's so many other great comedy duos out there that you know I'm not gonna even uh bing crosby and bob hope. I'd rather watch those the road, the road movies over. Uh, martin and lewis stuff, you know yeah, yeah, absolutely so also this. This is like kind of the last hurrah of the golden ages obsession with gorilla suit monster movies.

Speaker 2 48:54

I don't know if you've ever picked this up or noticed this yeah how many movies, horror movies there are from the golden age where they're just obsessed with people yeah, apes and gorilla people in gorilla suits, as like the horror, as the monster in a movie and I'm not talking about like king kong, for instance, where you know we're stop motion and it's very technically proficient and well done talking about movies like even going back to Lugosi's movie like Murders in the Rue Morgue that's about a guy in a monkey suit going around. There's the Paramount movie, the Monster and the Girl. Universal did an entire series about these types of things with a captive wild woman. Karloff made a movie called the Ape. Lugosi was in another one with the Ritz brothers called the Gorilla and the Ape man as well.

Speaker 3 49:38

So I'll just say about. I'll say about the room org. That was an egg ground post story where the reveal at the end is that the monkey was killing everybody and often credited as the first american mystery novel. Or not what I'm sorry but um, you know, this was must have been happening in the culture, this ape fever, because I was thinking about superman a little bit, and if you look back at 50 superman comics, I guarantee you every fourth cover has a fucking gorilla on it right, oh yeah, oh yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 50:04

Dc especially was really big in the fifth. I have one of those um collections. It's a vintage um issue but it's like dc goes ape or something like that, where it's all superheroes fighting giant gorillas in the city which is great, yeah, it goes back to titano, was one of the big superman villains back in the day, and I believe he shot kryptonite laser beams out of his eyes, or something like that, which I would have loved to have seen in the new movie that would have you will, I guarantee, I would have done it for me, although our opinion our opinion on superman is not really in vogue, apparently.

Speaker 3 50:36

So you know it's it's more popular to just trash it consistently yeah, actually I'd be curious to see an up or down thumb from the chat on whether or not you guys like superman, just to kind of see how far on the limb we are. But trembling color says. The gif of a gorilla suit dude shooting a tommy gun is a favorite of mine.

Speaker 2 50:51

I have no idea what it's from, ryan I can't place that one off the top of my head.

Speaker 3 50:57

Human film database over here fails us. Sorry, that's chat GPT, but um well, do you have any other thoughts on? Bela Lugosi meets a Brooklyn gorilla, my friend.

Speaker 2 51:07

Well, it's really sad, because everything that is set up to be is so wonderfully exploitative that you are drawn to it. It sounds like such a great setup for a movie that is sure to be delightful and enjoyable, and yet there is nothing to offer in this movie, which is just such a let down yeah, my, my, uh dream version of this film was a movie in which bella lugosi was a lead character and he had an encounter with a gorilla in, like the new york zoo.

Speaker 3 51:37

That's kind of what I thought that it would be about, but instead it's about two goofballs, uh, who land on an island, fuck around with the natives for like half the movie and then, like, encounter bello the gosi. In a minor way, one of them gets turned into a gorilla and then, if they're directing you to enough, we find out that it was all a dream and they try to pull some wizard of oz shit where all the characters from the movie are actually performers at a club and it's um, and you were there and you were there and you were there so that is the ultimate insult to the audience, because it has no.

Speaker 2 52:10

There's no setup, there's no. The payoff is extremely unsatisfying. It's like why even bother? What was? It's not funny. I guess their sense of humor was so warped, uh, that they thought this would be a good joke to end on.

Speaker 3 52:27

I have no idea or they couldn't figure out a way to um, get sam, get duke mitchell to turn back into a human, and they were running out of time so they just yeah it was really unfortunate. It was directed by a guy named William Bodine, who is often credited as one of the most prolific Hollywood directors. He made 179 movies.

Speaker 2 52:53

Really.

Speaker 3 52:54

Yeah.

Speaker 2 52:56

Anything of value. No, probably not, he made some Charlie.

Speaker 3 53:03

Chan movies oh.

Speaker 2 53:05

I've actually seen another movie of his Billy the Kid versus Dracula.

Speaker 3 53:09

Okay. Yeah, I remember you talked to me about that. Yeah, you did like that movie, right.

Speaker 2 53:14

Yeah, it's not great, but it's watchable, unlike this, yeah, it certainly has more going for it than this movie does. I'd not seen the sequel or, you know, spiritual sequel, I guess you would call it which is jesse james meets frankenstein's daughter, which also sounds good, you know great um, yeah I just kind of curious what frankenstein's daughter looks like uh torch oh, he did a lot of the torchy bling so he did a lot of like matinee programmer stuff back in the day it looks like they made this movie in six days oh, I believe it.

Speaker 2 53:50

Yeah, surprise, not even less terrible. So but would you say, though I mean, I don't know how familiar you are with the, the ed wood output like movies, movies like Glenn or Glenda.

Speaker 3 54:00

Not at all Well. I want to see that. I really want to see Glenn, or Glenda, I really want to see that.

Final Thoughts on Lugosi's Legacy

Speaker 2 54:06

So I did watch. I watched most of it before I fell asleep. I mean, I've seen it before but like watching it again, I would say it's probably worse than this. It's worse Really. Probably worse than this. It's worse Really.

Speaker 3 54:17

But it has the added value of being like a transgenderism movie in the fifties, which has to be interesting on some level, Whereas this is just just trash.

Speaker 2 54:29

I think a lot of those Ed Wood movies are more interesting when they're explored through the lens of the Tim Burton film, talking about them and recreating them and kind of celebrating them for that regard, rather than when you actually sit down to watch them. It's an extremely painful and irritating experience.

Speaker 2 54:49

This movie was maybe one of the most irritating movies I've ever seen, although, what I will give Glenn or Glenda over this is that Lugosi's performance inenn or glenda as tangential and unrelated as it is to the entire movie, which is basically him narrating the movie with having no relation to anything, what's going on is so much more wildly entertaining and through the roof as he, as he narrates ridiculous, nonsensical dialogue to the audience that has nothing to do with anything and while stock footage is superimposed of like buffaloes, you know, stampeding below him and he famously tells the, tells the audience to pull the string, pull the string. It's like. What does that mean?

Speaker 3 55:31

we have no idea well, this makes you want to watch it. Actually, his best line in this movie is Welcome to my creep joint. That was a great line. That was a great line. Well, this has been fun, ryan.

Speaker 2 55:46

Yeah, I mean I would definitely love to do some more Lugosi you know, underrated gems in the future, if you're down for that. I mean I mentioned Shandu the Magician, which is a great kind of pulpy, almost like proto superhero type movie back in the 30s and he plays the villain in the movie and that's a great movie.

Speaker 3 56:11

I want to see you do a video on the Black Cat on your channel. I'll work on that.

Speaker 2 56:18

I'll work on that for Halloween.

Speaker 3 56:20

Yeah, I would love to see you do that okay because you're about. You're about releasing videos annually now at this point, so you might as well you might as well put out a fucking one for halloween, right all right, call me out there.

Speaker 2 56:31

Yeah, I need a little push to uh to get going here. You know you're really inspired.

Speaker 3 56:35

I'll tell you what's going to really blow your mind. Okay, so I saw that Ryan bought the Criterion of Richard Lester's Three Musketeers. Four Musketeers, yes, and I'll tell you. I turned that on before I went to bed last night. I only got through half the movie because my wife told me to turn it off. She wasn't a big fan, she was going to sleep. But the first half of the Three musketeers by richard lester, I take back everything I said on the superman show about what an asshole richard lester is.

Speaker 2 57:05

This movie is awesome, it's incredible, it's it's terrific, good, good, I have not watched it yet. I may watch it tonight, actually, oh it's terrific.

Speaker 3 57:09

Yeah, I mean it's just. It's like I'm watching this. It's beautiful, it's funny and I'm thinking they spared no expense. And richard lester he, he's able to take the material in a way that maybe would offend us when it came to Superman and perhaps, if you've got real Alexander Dumas heads out there, maybe they hated it, but he manages to make there's a joke every minute. The frame is exploding with information. It's sexy, it's really stylish. The fight scenes, the sword fights, are incredible. I'm really excited to get to finish it. I thought it was. I was quite taken with it.

Speaker 1 57:45

So Three Musketeers Richard Lester, salkinds.

Speaker 2 57:47

I haven't seen it, but from what you're saying, I mean I have nothing against any of that. It may have actually worked if you had started, if Lester had been the one that they chose to say you're going to helm Superman for us because you did such a great job with the Three Musketeers and he did it in his style from the beginning, it probably would have been fine. We would probably love those movies today. But you can't come in as a replacement for Richard Donner, who set a specific tone that was extremely successful, for why that movie worked so well, and then do your thing. That's not how it works. It just doesn't work like that.

Speaker 3 58:26

Fair enough. I mean the movies are. You know, michael York is d'Artagnan, he's great. And then Oliver Reed is just like a fucking animal. He's so good and awesome in the movie. I mean it really is. I was really impressed with the sword fights and the choreography of the fighting and and some of the hijinks and pratfalls. It's just a great cast, too unbelievable cast. You know you have uh, fay dunaway, raquel welch, oliver reed, charlton heston, christopher lee. It's just, it's unreal.

Speaker 3 58:56

It's so cool I didn't realize I'm actually gonna go finish that right now when we get off the horn here, but, um, anything else for the people out there, ryan.

Speaker 2 59:05

No, I think uh go out and watch some Bela Lugosi movies. There's a lot. There's a lot of good, there's a lot of bad, there's a lot. Who? Would do anything but he, he just wanted to work, man, yeah, he wanted to work he wanted to be out there.

Speaker 3 59:23

Well, if he had lived longer.

Speaker 2 59:27

If he had lived longer he probably would have gotten some more recognition and respect moving into like the sixties. You know what I mean, like the way Karloff never lost his his muster at all he was. I think he was much more active in like Hollywood politics and society and stuff like that. You know kind of knew how to wheel and deal a Lugosi probably cause he was so awkward in terms of his like communication barrier and such, couldn't make it like that. I'm just speculating.

Preview of Future Episodes

Speaker 3 59:58

And so there was an interview with him that made me sort of feel closer to him is that he said they go, do you go out to the Hollywood party scene? And he said, no, not really I don't like to, I'm shy and I'd rather have a party at my house and have people come over and sit and talk. And his son recounted that he would often have parties that would go late into the night, lots of fun, um, but everyone would be talking and it would be an intimate setting and fun and exciting, and they would.

Speaker 2 1:00:21

he wasn't a big hobnobber guy yeah, so he was friends with lucille ball and desi arnaz. From what I understand too and I think I think it's in the liner for this for brooklyn gorilla they stopped by the set at one point and said hi, you know oh really, how's it going?

Speaker 3 1:00:39

yeah, hey, bella how you doing making this crap movie looks good, looks funny in an episode of I love lucy please yeah, right, dude, I mean, but yeah, yeah, bella, that bit with the really fat island girl chasing this kid around, that's really holds up really well we're in stitches here. Um yeah hey, if you guys haven't checked out my fire starter video that I made on my channel, give it a shot. It's another flop dude. I just keep hitting flops out out the gate. And my small soldiers video too.

Speaker 3 1:01:11

That was good, but our next show will be william shatner oh yeah, please, that would yeah our next show is going to be about William Shatner's career in between Star Trek TV and Star Trek the Motion Picture Lots of great movies. We're going to be watching Impulse, Kingdom of the Spiders, Reign of the Devil, the Devil's Reign, and one more.

Speaker 2 1:01:36

I can't remember the Esperanto one.

Speaker 3 1:01:46

The one where he speaks in esperanto. Maybe we will do the esperanto one, because I can't remember what the other one that was the other one was supposed to be. I think he's like a pedophile or something.

Speaker 2 1:01:50

No, no, no, he's, he's a, he's a gigolo, he's a gigolo oh, terrific yeah, he swindles uh old ladies, I think, out of their money, but he kills people too. Yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 1:02:01

Well, my next video that I have finished and I'm editing right now is going to be the Keep Michael Mann's the Keep, but I'm very much considering flirting with. It's going to be either Highlander or American Gigolo.

Speaker 2 1:02:14

Oh, please do American Gigolo. That's one of my favorite movies of all time.

Speaker 3 1:02:17

I think I might do American Gigolo. Yeah, oh, please do American Gigolo. That's one of my favorite movies of all time.

Speaker 2 1:02:19

I think I might do American Gigolo. Yeah, please, I would love to hear that. Oh any plans to discuss older war films and this fractal android. Really enjoyed your Firestarter video, oh thanks very much. I would.

Speaker 3 1:02:30

Thank you very much, I would, and actually my brother was really pressuring me to do a video with him on the longest day.

Speaker 2 1:02:38

I'd rather guess, okay but no, I was watching. I recently watched uh sands of iwo jima, john wayne very good, very good.

Speaker 3 1:02:48

Yeah, yeah, he does die in that one, yeah okay, yeah, I would, I would be into that, I'd be, I'd be down for that. I haven't really talked about war films very much.

Speaker 2 1:02:59

Yeah, there's a lot of good stuff out there.

Speaker 3 1:03:01

There, sure is Okay. Well, thanks brother.

Speaker 2 1:03:06

Thanks everyone for tuning in. Thanks everyone, See you next time.

Speaker 3 1:03:10

See ya.

Speaker 1 1:03:10

Please don't hurt me or ever desert me. Am I too late? Am I too late, too soon?