Happy (Belated) Mother's Day

Mother knows best... or at least that's what we're finding out this week.

In this belated Mother's Day special, we handed the programming duties over to the women who brought us into the world and let them pick the movies. The results? Two classic films that couldn't be more different.

Andy's mom selected the legendary ballet drama The Red Shoes, a visually stunning tale of ambition, obsession, art, and the price of dedicating yourself completely to your craft. Meanwhile, Ken's mom went with the charming mystery-romance Charade, starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn, proving that murder, espionage, and flirtation can make for a pretty great date night.

Will our moms earn a coveted "Pay," or will one of these classics be walking the plank? Along the way, Ken and Andy discuss old Hollywood charm, technicolor magic, whether these films still work for modern audiences, and what happens when your parents are suddenly in charge of the podcast.

Happy Mother's Day... a month late.

Check us out at www.passpiratepay.com

Transcript

The Red Shoes

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Hello, everybody. Welcome once again to Pass Pirate Pay, the movie discussion show. My name is Ken. I'm your host, alongside my co-host Andy. Andy, how are you doing today? I'm doing good. How are you, Ken? I'm doing pretty well myself. Uh so today we're gonna be doing uh we're doing something a little different. We're having a belated Mother's Day celebration. A little special that we meant to do earlier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But you know, life gets in the way sometime. Yeah. And uh I'm sure our moms will be totally understanding of that. That's who they are. So yeah, we uh we decided in honor of Mother's Day, uh we're gonna celebrate our moms. So uh to that end, we each asked our mother to uh come up with a movie that uh that they love that we hadn't seen and uh that we can talk about on the show. So the two movies we're doing. Your mother uh p uh has picked 1948's The Red Shoes. Right. And uh my mother picks 1963's charade.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

My mom didn't pick the red shoes. Okay. Uh I just knew that she would pick it. Well that's good. So I just we're just doing it.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

Oh, that's good. Yeah, so I I uh yeah, I had known like my mother's other favorite movies are like Singin in the Rain and Gone with the Wind and Those are my mom's favorites too. Yeah, stuff that you know I've seen already and talked about, and it seemed like it was less interesting. So I asked her to dig a little deeper, and uh so charade is what she came up with. So we'll talk about that today. Uh so yeah, let's start chronologically, let's as we always do. So we're going with your mom's pick first. Yeah, which was a long time ago, right? Long time ago. 1948. 48. 1948, which is uh the year after my mother was born. Okay. So uh yeah. Um The Red Shoes, directed by uh Michael Powell and Emmerich Pressberger. This movie is very, very well regarded. It is, yeah. Um, and I I hadn't really heard about it. I didn't really know too much about it, but a lot of really prominent movie people cite it as like a very key movie in uh like the history of cinema. And yeah, it's it's very strange to hear Scorsese talk about it and Spielberg talk about it. Love it, they absolutely love it. Um so uh it's the story of a ballet, basically. The heavy of the story, the villain, is the director of this ballet, and he encounters these two young people separately at a b at the same time. There's a young uh musician, uh who a composer, and a wannabe upcoming ballet dancer. Yeah, and they both become involved in his company and yeah, begin to flourish. And uh eventually they the two fall in love with each other, and this violates the director's rule. No one may fall in love. Yeah. We see uh uh earlier in the film the prima ballerina of his the previous prima ballerina of his ballet when she announces that she has become she's gotten engaged, his immediate response is get out. Like she is just flung away. Doesn't matter that she is beloved and uh and a wonderful dancer, it doesn't matter, she's fallen in love, she is no longer worthwhile, and she must be she must be cast aside, which which allows uh that's how I run my bands. Oh, I like it. It's pretty good. Uh which allows our heroine uh Vicky to uh rise to prominence, and she does so uh by dancing a brand new ballet. The music for the red shoes is written by Crasser, and and uh it all builds towards the the centerpiece of the movie, which is probably about 15-minute long sequence where the where they're performing the this ballet of the the red shoes.

SPEAKER_02 3:49

Yeah, the big in the big section in the middle, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Yeah, right in the middle of this movie. A very interesting thing in this movie is that almost all of the major roles are cast by people who are involved in ballet, like dancers and choreographers. Oh, I didn't know.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

So those are actually ballet players.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah, so the role of Vicky is is played by she's she's not this is her first ever screen credit. Um, so she's she's just a ballet dancer. And uh like all of the other people in the ballet, like the the the choreographer of all the dance sequences, is played by just an actual ballet choreographer.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Yeah, they look like they knew what they were doing, yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 4:26

Yeah, but it leads to some interesting stuff where it's just like some of the non-ballet related scenes in this movie are a little bit creaky to watch, like the acting.

SPEAKER_02 4:37

Yeah, I think that is it just that or is it everything before Marlon Brando?

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Yeah, there is some of that, but like I don't know. For for for me, especially the the the character of the choreographer, like he is just big. He is doing everything just really huge, and like everything is dramatic and huge gestures and everything like that. And it's just like it's like wow, this for for the first I don't know, hour or so of this movie, I was like, man, this is uh this is a little tough. It's a little it like I see what they're doing here, but it's it's a little tough to watch. It's like these yeah, these interactions just feel really not authentic and not. I thought the acting was really wooden, yeah, very wooden. But then once the dancing starts, you get the idea as to why they decided to cast it this way. Right. Because like it would have been I think it would have been worse the other way around. I I 100% agree. Yeah, if they would have hired actors and made them do ballet. Yeah, yeah. Because like the dance stuff in this movie, like I'm not I'm not a ballet person, it's not a thing that I'm really interested in. But my god, man, the dead the dance sequences in this movie, particularly the premiere sequence of the Red Shoes, is spellbinding, just like absolutely amazing.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

I I I had the same feeling you did. I'm like, I'm watching, I'm like going, oh, this is just like one of those old-timey like ah, the melodramatic. Yeah. What are we gonna do? Right. Yeah. With the Pan American.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

Yep. Yeah. But but you're right. But and and it's not even just like they just filmed a ballet, like they create movie magic, you know? Right, like all through it.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Yeah, they're using like the I I'm guessing is the most cutting-edge stuff. It's like it's like a time.

SPEAKER_01 6:27

It's just an absolute like fantasia sequence of of you know, like things are happening that could not possibly be happening in in reality. Right. And it just it looks so beautiful. Everything is choreographed fantastically.

SPEAKER_02 6:42

I just thought the look of this movie through the whole thing, yeah. Every single frame looked like an oil painting. Yeah, it was it was a really beautiful looking movie.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Yeah, the color palette that they use on on in every scenario, it just it looks great. Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right about that. I mean, it's just it just it's a beautiful looking movie to go all the way around. I mean, just really good. But yeah, like the the the whole red shoes sequence, I mean, it goes through various like scene changes, and it all seems really effortless, and it's and it's beautiful, and it's just like I was just totally really trippy. Some of that, yeah, like and the story is based on a short story by Hans Christian Anderson, and it's about a woman who puts on these red shoes, and then they're they compel her to dance, and she is not able to take them off, and so she just continues to dance until she, you know, like I guess dies or something uh from the from overdancing.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

By the end of the movie, I thought that was kind of cool. Yeah. Because they were telling the story of the red shoes in a realistic way. Yeah. And then the the fantasy red shoes was embedded within it. Right.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Yeah. It's it's really great. Yeah, so as you said, I guess I know, spoiler alert for this whatever, 70, 80 year old movie.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

But spoiler alert. Spoilers for the red shoes ahead. Skip to minute marker, 10 minutes and 35 seconds, or the next chapter. You have been warned.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

So after after the director finds out that the two of them are in love, and he casts them both out, and so they f they go off and just are two young people in love, and the craster is still composing and he's doing other work, and he's got himself, you know, he writes a symphony or something that that's getting all his press. But all along, Vicky is just like she loves to dance. That's her whole that's her whole thing in in the in life. And as much as she loves him, she she wants to have this thing where she can both be in love with him and dance, even though the you know stodgy ballet director does not want this to happen, right? Right. So eventually he he the director is able to talk her into coming back and performing the red shoes again on the night when uh Craster's symphony is supposed to be opening in another city. So he's trying to pry them apart in this way, and she puts the red shoes on to go dance the ballet, and then all hell breaks loose, and she winds up you know running and then eventually just like leaps to her death. Yeah. Because just like in the fairy tale, the the sh she is compelled to dance, and when she is unable to do that, like it uh it just means her death, it just means her demise, the fact that that uh she is not able to dance to her heart's content. Yeah, in a way that I thought, yeah, I'm with you. I thought it was just really cool. It's just it's like really good steril, really good storytelling, you know. Yeah. As we both said, it's uh it took a little while for this one to get going, but once it did, I mean, I thought it was really worth it. It's uh it's just a just a really good movie. And yeah, I can understand why people consider it to be so influential because it definitely does not look like other movies from the 40s.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

No, and I'm guessing this is one of those movies where they were doing new camera stuff that we don't recognize because it was new.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Yeah, because it's been all our lives that people have been doing these things. Yeah, but yeah, that back then.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

But I recognized I saw a lot of things in there that were like that I saw other directors steal. Yeah. You know? Yep, yep. So yeah, I liked it too.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Yeah, so you know, for uh I think the first time in uh the history of our podcast, something that your mom likes, I have an appreciation for. Oh yeah. This is this is a first.

Red Shoes Review

SPEAKER_02 10:32

Should be she'll be happy to hear that. Yeah, so finally that'll be a better Mother's Day gift than me liking it. All right, so what would you give the red shoes, Ken? Is it a past pirate or pay? It's a pay for me. It's a pay for me, too. Nice. Look at that. All right, good for good for mom. You probably don't need to pay for it. It's very old. That is true. You can probably watch it on YouTube.

Charade

SPEAKER_01 11:05

All right, our next movie uh comes from 1963. It is Charade, directed by Stanley Donan. This movie stars in a very hilarious thing to me. Uh it stars Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn playing just a couple of Americans. Are neither of them Americans? No, no. Oh, I didn't know that. These are two extraordinarily British people. I didn't know that. And they're just playing some Americans living abroad in France with their Pan American accents. Uh yeah, Audrey Hepburn plays a woman who, in the very beginning scene of the movie, her husband is thrown from a train and murdered, and she's on vacation without him in the Alps, and uh she meets Cary Grant, and he's very charming. Um pretty old. He's pretty old. Yeah. He's uh I would I I would say he's probably in his 60s at this point. Yeah. And she's probably in like her early 30s. Okay. Um, and there is a a recurring thing in this movie where to see that about movies hasn't changed. Yeah. There is a recurring bit in this movie where she is like throwing herself at him for the majority of the movie. Yeah. And he's, you know, pushing off, pushing off, pushing off. You're 60 years old, and she's Audrey Hepper. And this is just we're stretching. I mean, I know he's Cary Grant, and you know, it's very dashing, but we're stretching credulity here just a little bit. It's the same exact thing happens in movies now, though. Absolutely. We we find out that Audrey uh Audrey's husband has been murdered uh because of there's uh there's a large sum of money that uh that he has stolen from some very unsavory characters. Right. And it's it's 19 what 61. So it's 250 grand. 250,000. $250,000. There's a question of where did the husband Charlie, the husband, where did he put the money, and w who has it? Everybody thinks they know who's got it. So there's these three creeps that are played by uh George Kennedy, James Coburn, and some guy I don't know. Um I like those guys. Yeah, they're great. It's later discovered that they were all, along with Charles, they were in the war together and they got some kind of like war prize that they've secured illegally, and now they're it it's long enough away from the war that it's time to cash in. Except Charles is trying to keep the money for himself, so they knock him off, and then you know it's just it's just a question of everybody's trying to find this money. So yeah, it's uh it's basically just uh it's just like a fun little caper movie, you know, where we're and and the thing is all shot on location in Paris. This is another movie that looks absolutely spectacular, I think. Like it uses Paris to arrange. In a different way than the red shoes. Yeah, for sure. It's just it just takes full advantage of on location shooting. Like there's a hotel where every main character is is uh staying. They have a room, uh, and there's there's an elevator that's surrounded by this spiral staircase. So you can like as as characters are riding the elevator, other people are walking up and down this spiral staircase, and it's just really cool. It's just a really cool looking location. Yeah, I just I was just really into it. And there's a really uh it's like famous sequence when they're on this boat just riding along the Seine, like under under all these famous Parisian bridges, you know, and it's just it just yeah, it just looks really great. And in contrast to the last movie, this movie is just like good actors. Walter Mathoe is also here. Oh, yeah. Uh um doing like prime Walter Mathau shick, you know what I mean? Like he's just being crotchety Walter Mathau, like right in his bag, and it's really funny and good stuff. But yeah, these are just really fun and good actors, just like having a good time and it a way that I just found thoroughly enjoyable. And you know, the mystery of the movie is is it's like an all-time Hitchcock McGuffin thing where it's just like we're all after this money, but who really cares? The money, the chase for the money is just an excuse to watch these people doing their stuff, right? And it's just you know, it's just a really fun time. Um, George Kennedy uh plays a bad guy with a hook for a hand. Yeah, and they really play up that hook, and he is really going for it. Like he is like over the top, super menacing guy. Like he's like really just chewing up scenery, you know. If if anything, I found the tone of this movie to be like a little too aggressively jokey, you know. Like I wish it would, I wish it had played it just a little bit more straight, but on the whole, you know, it's just a good time. It's just like it's just a good time movie.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

It didn't have one of those like uh animated kooky 60s openers. Yeah, yeah. The opening title sequence.

SPEAKER_01 16:02

Yep. Um, yeah, Henry Mancini did the score for the movie, and it's just like it's just it it sounds like a good time. It's just yeah, this movie's just fun. Um yeah, like I there's not really much to say about the plot machinations or or anything. It's like it was it was kind of that there were some holes.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Yeah, but it but this you kind of like let it go.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

I just wasn't like, yeah, I just didn't care. I just wasn't uh one thing I really really the the what the biggest drawback to the movie, the McGuffin is eventually discovered by uh Audrey's friend's little boy. Yeah, and this kid is the most annoying little kid actor I've ever seen in my entire life. Like every line of French. He's like a French kid, right? Yeah, he's like he's and he's speaking English in this like ridiculous French accent, and and like every line is he sounds so he sounds so fake. He doesn't sound like a real person, a real child at any way in any time. It's so I'm like, this kid, get him off my screen. But other than that, I was just I was totally just swept away. I just really enjoyed it. I didn't even notice the kid.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

Yeah, he was bugging the hell out of me. But other than that, you know, it's really cool. Uh one thing I thought was cool about this movie is I didn't I wasn't expecting the twists and turns. Yeah. Which and there was a lot of them.

SPEAKER_01 17:20

Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

And I just didn't know where it was going. It was unexpected, which I like in a movie. Yep. You know?

SPEAKER_01 17:25

Yeah, there's a running, there's a running bit about uh Cary Grant is never giving his real name. Right. So he's just constantly reintroducing himself to Audrey Hurden.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

What am I supposed to call you now?

SPEAKER_01 17:38

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

What is your name now?

SPEAKER_01 17:41

And she's always asking it, you know, whenever he tells her a name, he's like, is there a missus, whatever the name you gave her is? Uh yeah. Um yeah, like this is just a charming movie. It's just like it's just a good time. I don't know. I don't really have much to say about it. It's just a really enjoyable movie-going experience. It's not gonna this is not a movie that's gonna change the world, but sometimes it's it's fun to just have a romp, you know what I mean? Yeah. And uh it's good to know that And this isn't like a I've never heard of this. Oh, really? Yeah. They actually remade it in the early 2000s, I think, with Mark Wahlberg and uh Tandy Newton. Oh, really? Yeah. Uh as the as Was it called the same thing? It's called The Truth About Charlie. Okay. But I never saw it. I had seen this movie actually. I had seen Charade, I don't know, 30 years ago, but I had I didn't remember it at all. I I had absolutely no idea of any like we talked about with all the twists, even though I had seen it before, I had no idea what was gonna happen. Yeah, I didn't know where it was going. Yeah. So yeah, it's just it's just a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_02 18:41

All right, cool. Yeah. So is it a past pirate pay for charade, Ken? It's another pay for me. Well, our moms did good. Yeah. You gotta save them? Our moms did good. Yeah. I I I'd do a pay on this. That's cool. That's fun. It's good. All right, we did it. All right. They're gonna be very happy. I love it. You're gonna be very happy with us. Love you, mom. Love you, mama. All right. Uh so for our next show, Ken, we are going to do movies about stalkers. Ooh, stalkers. There's a few. I wanted to I wanted to do ones we hadn't seen before, though. So I have seen none of these. You have seen none of these. Correct. We're going to do the new movie Obsess, Obsession.

SPEAKER_01 19:22

Obsession. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

We're going to movie Obsession. We're going to do Greta. Okay. And we're going to do The Watcher. All right. Those are our three movies. They're all three relatively new. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Yeah, I I've never even heard of The Watcher. I remember Greta came out a couple years ago, but uh Watcher, not familiar with it. And uh it's been on my list for a while.

SPEAKER_02 19:42

I haven't seen it though.

SPEAKER_01 19:43

And Obsession, I mean, people are talking about it quite a bit. It is it is making some serious serious uh hay at the box office for a very cheap. So yeah, I'm excited for that. Can't wait. All right, cool. See you then. See you next week or next time. Thanks for tuning in to Pass Pirate Pay. This episode was produced by the one and only Andy Morris. If you haven't already, hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. We'd hate for you to miss out on all the fun. Curious about where to stream the movies we talked about? Head on over to PassPiratePay.com. We've got everything listed with handy links on where to watch. You can also join the conversation on our Facebook page or stalk our cinematic musings on Letterboxd. Links are on the site. Got a movie or TV show you think we should review? Fill out the contact form or this is cool. You can even text us right through the episode player on our website's front page. Thanks again for hanging out with us. Until next time, keep watching, keep rating, and keep it past Pirate Payne.