A Fish Called Wanda

This week, Nicky has chosen to talk about A FISH CALLED WANDA (1988).

Written by John Cleese, and directed by John Cleese and Charles Chrichton, A FISH CALLED WANDA is a comic caper that tells the story of a slick diamond heist that falls apart when the double crossing starts. With a corruptible lawyer, an elderly dog owner, and farcical lols aplenty, has this romp stood the test of time?

Nicky’s been a fan for decades. Can she convince Phil to feel the joy of the comedy or are some bits just too damn problematic now? Listen to the chat and find out.

This conversation was recorded in January 2026, before the death of Tom Georgeson.

References mentioned, and wider reading…

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/AFishCalledWanda - TV tropes

https://notlefthandedfilmguide.co.uk/2020/06/27/a-fish-called-wanda/ from 2020, the Not Left Handed Film Guide to the film.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/07/the-oral-history-of-a-fish-called-wanda?srsltid=AfmBOoqWHEVDTQmGmpAH3zXFa-zUuKSvfAUexxI5KzQphAGV6Vd-DaTT –The oral history of A Fish Called Wanda in Vanity Fair.

https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/a-fish-called-wanda-1988 - Roger Ebert’s review

https://michaelpalincentreforstammering.org – Michael Palin Centre for Stammering

#films #podcast #movies #afishcalledwanda #comedyfilms

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hello and welcome to Lights Camera Aggro, the podcast with two friends, one film and very little agreement. I'm Nikki and I'm not into Necrophilia, thanks.

SPEAKER_01 0:18

And I'm Phil, and just don't call me stupid. This week it's Nikki's turn to share a movie she loves, and today she's brought the 1988 film A Fish Called Wonder.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Oh that will come soon enough, but first, how's your week been?

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Er well today I got absolutely soaked. Every single piece of clothing I'm wearing is literally wet through.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Are you going to tell everybody that one of your tops is in my tumble dryer as we speak? Yes, it is.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

It's er just drying out now. I I was wearing two tops because I work outdoors, so I we dried one off and um the other one's in there now.

SPEAKER_00 0:56

You did look a little dishevelled when you turned up.

SPEAKER_01 0:58

I think I still do, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Well, I didn't like to say.

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Yeah. I've also I've I've been to the cinema this week. Oh my gosh, now that Christmas is out of the way and several weeks ago. Yeah. Um life is getting a bit back to normal, less busy with work, so found some time to watch the new Avatar movie with uh daughter number two. Um it was okay. It's visually stunning, visually stunning. And if you are to watch a movie in 3D, these are the ones to watch. They are, you know, the it's not point at you type 3D, it just adds depth to the movie. Right. It's it's it's really, really well done.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

3D is not really the type of thing I seek when I'm looking for a film, but that's fine, it's only for your blue arts.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

I think some films I I like this one are made for 3D, whereas some films they convert into 3D and it's just it's not as good. So this it it like I say, nothing's like done so it's pointing out the screen at you, but like when you they're going through the jungle and you can see like that there's bits of trees and leaves close to you and they're a bit further away, it just works magnificently. But as a film, it was just okay. Sorry, James Cameron, but it was just I think he'll live. Well, I think you know it's up to 1.2 billion already, and it was only released Christmas week or something, so well the the in other very different film news, the thing that I am I really, really want to go and see it, and I don't want to miss it, and it's coming maybe to the end of its run at the cinema at the moment, is Hamlet.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

And okay, I don't think it's gonna be for you. It should be for it should be for everyone. Hamnet. Hamnet. Not Hamlet. Oh, Hamnet. It is about Shakespeare. I so first of all it's a book. It's a book. And I didn't read the book, and now I feel like well, I'm not going to now I'm gonna watch the film, which is always the wrong way to do things, and maybe I will read the book one day. But it's I think it's gonna clean up in all of the awards. It's Who's in it? I've It's Paul Maskell.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Yes, lovely Paul Maskell and Jesse Buckley. Margot Robbie?

unknown 3:07

No.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Well, unless she's played it very quietly.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

I might think of a no, no, is that Withering Heights, Margot Robbie? Woldering Heights that's the one, Margot Robbie.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Okay. Oh yeah, they're bringing out Wuthering Heights.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Yeah, and I've seen like she's in that. She's in that, so that's where I'm getting mixed up.

SPEAKER_00 3:25

Okay, so that's a whole other thing to talk about because I've studied the book so much. I don't think you can meet Wildering Heights as a romance because it's horrific, it's abusive. And I think that might be what they're gonna do, but I don't know, so maybe I'm not. But I just it's it's not a a lovely film at all.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

I've seen the trailer, and also, and this may slightly disappoint you a little bit. I see an interview with Paul Mascal, and he said he's gonna go away for a while now after the show.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

Oh, I saw yeah, because he's done so many things, and there's loads of stuff that's still not out yet. Um no, Hamnet, we're gonna get back to Hamlet. It's something that I think is going to be an amazing cinematic experience based on the reviews I've read and the fact it's just award season, you know, catnip. Um, but it is a very emotional story, and I think it's one of them where I don't want to watch it in a kind of a oh what I'm a bit bored. I know, I just nipped to the cinema tonight. I I think I'm gonna have to steal myself for an emotional roller coaster.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

I I like him as an actor, we've seen him in uh a couple of films. You you recommended to watch it. Oh god, it was my first time I'd met I've been introduced for Normal People, but that's not that.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

No, that's a TV series as well. What else has he been in that I've oh All of Us Strangers.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Yes, okay, so you recommended that to me.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

It's the best film that's ever been made.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Right. So you recommend Andrew Scott as well. You recommended that to me. So that was my first time I'd come across him.

SPEAKER_00 4:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

I also seen him in Gladiator 2, right? Now, a lot of people didn't like Gladiator 2, but I thought he was very good, and he would be my choice for the next Bond.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

Okay, I have no problem with that. But what I like about his the roles he picks is that often sad men I think he's very good at playing a sad man.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

That's James Bond, isn't it? James Bond is a very good thing. I think he's very sad.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

There's a thing coming out at the moment, I think it's called the Sound Science of Sound. It's got Josh O'Connor and Paul Maskell, it looks beautiful. And um, what else have I seen him in the oh my god, After Sun is so oh it's a heart-wrenching, sad but amazing film. He just plays people with a lot on their minds. Yeah, he does very well.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

He doesn't like although he's been in Gladiator 2, and this is why he probably won't get Bond, um, and maybe Bond people don't want him, but he doesn't want to do big Hollywood block posts because he likes his little indie movies and stuff. And he said, even though he's done gladiators, he's still gonna stick to some little indie movies. Oh good.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

He's I think he's a brilliant actor, he's he's really good, and he's young as well, so you feel like he's not even reached his potential.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

And that's why I think he'd be perfect for Bond. I think he's British, he's good looking, Irish, he's very average. He's absolutely Irish. But you know, we've had Pierce Brosnan play um Bond, who was Irish as well. But I just I just think he'd be perfect for the role.

SPEAKER_00 6:11

Yeah, I don't well, I I mean I want him success and happiness, I don't want him to sell out.

SPEAKER_01 6:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

So that's my take. But anyway, should we crack on?

SPEAKER_01 6:19

We shall crack on. So before we start, remember this is going to be full of spoilers. If you haven't seen the Fish Call Wander, now's the time to pause the podcast and come back, and we'll be waiting. So, why did you choose a Fish Call Wonder?

SPEAKER_00 6:42

Okay, so as you know, I do it all the time. The films I bring here are usually films that mean a lot to me because I watched them as a child and I had them recorded on video and I would be able to watch repeatedly, and I only got to really record films at Christmas because that's when you'd get network premiers. BBC would have the big Christmas movie before the streaming um days kicked in. So we're going back to Christmas 1991 and I was 13. Now, it wasn't me that recorded this, I did not circle this in the Radio Times that year, but my dad did, and it's a fish called Wonder, which, if you know anything about anything, has got John Cleese in it. Yeah, and I think it's fair to say he is a comedian or a comic actor and writer that is of my dad's era.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

Monty Python.

SPEAKER_00 7:27

Monty Python.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

Later Python.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Basil Faulty, yeah, absolutely. So I think it makes sense that my dad wanted to watch this, Michael Palin as well. And also what I find odd about this is that, as you know, as I've spoken about before, I've got loads of brothers and sisters and I'm the oldest. So I didn't really get to watch grown-up films um with my parents, as and as everybody else would, who may have been like a teenager with maybe one sibling or something. Because there were always little kids around and they never went to bed because mum and dad had no control over so many. So they'd just be roaming the lounge until God knows when, until they tied themselves out, basically. And yet, for some reason, a few days after Christmas 91, my dad I remember him saying, I think you'll think this is funny, and he put it on the tell. And I don't remember where the rest of the kids were. I remember this being a film, uh, an experience where I watched this film with my dad, and my mum was in the room too. But they must have just been playing with their presents or something. I don't know, but it's a it's a vivid experience in my head, but I really, really loved it. Uh, and just to add, um, my brother, who was seven around about that time, seven or eight, he got his first goldfish and he called his goldfish Otto. No way. So, yeah, so that still makes me laugh. And I he obviously saw it far too young, but um, it was on video, it was just one of our videos that we had. So I've loved this film for a long time. Okay, talk to me about this. Was this the first time you'd seen it? Did I make you watch something you hate? Come on, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

So, this is a rare occasion where it's a film you've brought that I've already seen. No way, they exist. But I don't remember the film as such, right? But I remember I have watched it. I remember we had it on VHS, but it was a bought VHS because like that was around a time when VHS started becoming to buy for like video about $9.99 or $12.99. Films were able to be purchased because other than that, you used to just have to go to the video shop.

SPEAKER_02 9:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

But I remember I distinctly remember taking it to school. I was like at the end of term, and like you know, people brought in videos to watch in the class or whatever. Um, we watched it in media studies or the end of media studies as it led into lunch break, and we just decided to eat all our sandwiches in the class, and the teacher, Mr. Stanley, he stayed there.

SPEAKER_00 9:46

Um this is not a film you should take into school for teachers to be.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

I mean, it must have been 15, or I wouldn't have taken it in. It just feels a bit friends. I remember two girls coming into the classroom who were from his um tutor class and sat there and being a bit nervous and a bit shy and giggly, and the the sex scene come on, uh, and I remember Mr. Stanley having his head in his hands going, Oh my god, should you just be watching this?

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Putting a register, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Should you just be watching this? And we were all laughing because there was nothing to be shown and stuff. It's more like you know, it's more of a comedy scene and stuff. But I remember the the two girls laughing, and what was really funny is obviously one of the girls stood out to me and ended up marrying her. Yeah, yeah, back then.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

What a start to a relationship.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Yeah, first things did together was watch a fish call one day.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

Oh my god. Oh well, this is nice that this has um some sort of nostalgia for you then.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Yeah, it was it was quite good.

SPEAKER_00 10:44

So you're not gonna just spend the whole time rubbishing my my choice?

SPEAKER_01 10:48

Well, that remains to be seen. That remains to be seen.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

Okay, well, we're gonna start at the beginning. This is, I think, a really good script. I think it's a really good plot, I think it's tight, and it just hits the ground running. So I reckon in the first minute of the film starting, we are introduced to four of the main characters, the main characters really. Um, so we see just these little vignettes as we are introduced to them. We see John Cleves, who plays Archie, and he is a barrister in court closing up a case. Then we split to Jamie Lee Curtis's Wonder, and she's scoping out a robbery with like a hidden camera in a secret bag. Or a secret bag, no, a secret camera.

SPEAKER_02 11:25

In a secret bag, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Kevin Klein is Otto, and he immediately shows he's a bit of a psycho because I think it's he's he's falling asleep reading Nietzsche, and then he gets startled, and so he just shoots his gun automatically, so a bit of a psycho.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

Yeah, it shows how over the top he is.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

It's completely ridiculous, and then Michael Palin's Ken, who is very the music changed at this point to real gentle music, and he's tending his fish.

SPEAKER_01 11:49

Yeah, he's very soft, very gentle man.

SPEAKER_00 11:51

Um so we introduced to these four characters uh immediately, and we also before that it shows us we're in London, and we're in London because of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, which makes me feel like this is a London that America would recognise.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

Yeah, it's definitely been filmed to appeal to an American audience.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

It's very much a transatlantic two sides of the yeah, there's lots of bits where the riff on what Englishness is and what American is sort of stereotypes. Um but yeah, this is a very, very global, recognisable London as opposed to all the nuances and exciting little places that you could find.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Very, very recognisable global stars from both sides of the Atlantic.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Absolutely, absolutely. Uh so those are our little introductions, and then we have the titles, and there's music, and it is brilliant music by John Dupree. And I just think I know this is what film scores should do, but you're just very I was just very aware of like when it's a bit exciting and a bit hasty, the music is fast. When it's a little bit pondery and a bit sad, the music is slow. I just was aware that the music really does set the mood, and I like that. I don't I really like the music. I just think it's I mean, I've heard it so much.

SPEAKER_02 13:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:01

Um sadly you can't find it on Apple Music, it just doesn't seem to exist as a I don't know if it's a copyright thing or it's out of print. Print? What are we doing?

SPEAKER_01 13:11

You probably no, you'd probably get on somewhere like Amazon or somewhere like that to buy a CD. You would have to have a CD player to actually call it.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Anyway, so we start the film, and this is a bankheist caper, and we meet George Thomason. Did you recognise George Thomason who played him? No, I didn't. Okay. So this is Tom Georgeson. And Tom Georgeon is from Liverpool. I think he's like in his 80s now, but he is an actor from Liverpool, and I have seen him in some other stuff oh a few years ago now, though. Um, and I just like how they swapped his name. He plays the character George Thomason, but he's called Tom Georgeson. And here's my little claim to fame. So please get ready to be very impressed. Tom Georgeson, his I think older sister, was friends with my dad's older sister in Liverpool back when maybe they were at school.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

So I'm like practically sat here with royalty now, aren't I? My friends, cousins, brothers, sisters knew somebody who knew somebody.

SPEAKER_00 14:13

But this is the thing, I think this is also where my dad would have wanted to record it as well, because oh, Tom Georgetown's in it, and he I don't think he particularly knows him on a one-to-one basis, but would have definitely known of him through his sister. So yeah, I just like that because yeah, it's anyway. He's George Thompson, and he is a gangster, and he is um with his sort of right-hand man Ken and his girlfriend Wanda, they are planning a diamond robbery. Um, but they need a weapons man. So Wanda brings her, and I'm gonna do massive inverted commas now. Her brother doing the I'm doing it with my fingers now. Her brother Otto to meet George. We know straight away that Otto is isn't actually uh Wanda's brother because he squeezes her tit while George isn't looking. So he's clearly not a blood relative, um, but that's how it is, and he's really thick as well. Oh, like like industrial thick. He keeps having to be I you know what once George lays out the sort of the two the two points to the plan, like but what was the middle one? It's just funny things like that all the time. Um, and then but we know Otto is awful from the start because he's very aggressive, and also Ken has a stutter, which I'm sure we'll talk about at the end.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

About representation and it's a bit over-the-top, it's not it's not just a stutter, it's a way over the top stutter. For comedic purposes, it kind of works.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

I think we have to be clear and say there's lots of people who have a stutter like that or a stammer. I'm not uh I'm just entirely sure of the technical differences. There's lots of people who have that, but what I think we need to decide or we we need to ponder is whether or not is it played to be a comic device or is it to show the awfulness of all the characters? What is is it would you do it now? I'm not entirely sure of it.

SPEAKER_01 15:57

I don't think you do it now, but but you've touched upon a good point. It's done as a comedic point, but it's also done to show how bad Otto is.

SPEAKER_00 16:06

Yeah, and I and and is that fair to to pick a person with something that maybe they see as a struggle sometimes, to use him as a reason to show the inadequacies of another character. I don't know. It just reminds me of um when The Traiters was on in January, um there's a character character, God, she's a real woman, they are real people. Characters. There's a woman uh in it called Jessie who has a stutter and she explains at the beginning, and so you know, occasionally you hear it when she's talking, and it's just not really it's just it's not it's not a problem, it's not a thing, it's just something she explains at the beginning. And I've seen online um at the time when it was on quite a few people being really pleased because they have a stutter, and so it's so nice to see someone on telly with a speech impediment. I don't know if that's the right phrase now, because I don't know, it's a while since I've been cancelled now.

SPEAKER_01 16:55

Well no, I don't know, because do people You're like the most politically correct person I know gonna be cancelled because you can't wear things properly.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

I don't think I don't know. Do people see it as an impediment or is that a sort of abless thing to say? I don't know. But the point is people have been pleased with the representation.

SPEAKER_01 17:11

Now I just maybe Michael Palin for getting our podcast cancelled.

SPEAKER_00 17:14

Maybe Michael Palin isn't doing representation because he's actually not got a stutter. So whatever. We'll talk about it later. Anyway, we've really got sidetracked. All that is going on um in the flat planning the bank heist, but we are now going to move to a leafy garden scene, a world away, quite middle class little England. Upper middle. It's a moneyed home. Oh she the barrister, and that's John Cleese. Uh comes home from court and he tries to chat to his wife Wendy. Wendy doesn't give a shit.

SPEAKER_01 17:46

Yeah. I've won the case, dear.

SPEAKER_00 17:48

Oh, the flowers, no one sent the flowers. Oh, I've got to deal with all this. She's not listening to him. I do think, and I just want to mention it now, because I'm gonna talk I'm gonna be quite praising of John Cleese throughout this, and certainly the work he's done in this. I do think I don't listen to everything he says these days, because I think sometimes he doesn't sound like he says things I agree with.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

He's a bit more Basil Faulty.

SPEAKER_00 18:10

I don't want to get into it. But what I find interesting when you think back to the things he's written and created, his character always has an awful wife. So I think Sybil Falty, Wendy in this, or do you ever see clockwise?

SPEAKER_01 18:24

No, I don't think.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

It's very funny, but he he's basically a a a headmaster who is faulty-esque.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:30

And his wife is just, you know, not understand. Well, to be honest, you don't really see them in any scenes together, but he's not happily married because she's just busy and he's you know, whatever. I just find it interesting that what does that say about him? But anyway.

SPEAKER_01 18:43

Yeah, less less said about John the better.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

But I think we're talking about his work in this film, and I'm really happy with his work in this film. They're obviously minted, loads of money, but not happily married at all. And the daughter Porsche is there, she wants to swap horses, yeah, which is just a whole other world.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

Ridiculous, and the name Porsche is just very, very 80s people trying to be posh in the daughter's Porsche.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

I've never met a real person.

SPEAKER_01 19:11

I have met a brat kid called Porsche.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 19:14

Who was from a not well-to-do family, but they all spoke as if she was from a well-to-do family.

SPEAKER_00 19:20

So I oh, I'd never known anyone called Porsche in real life, but it's from the Merchant of Venice. One of Shakespeare's leading ladies is called Porsche. Um so that's why I know it, and I know it from this, but I don't know none in real life. Oh, Porsche de Rossi.

unknown 19:33

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

I probably know her face.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:36

So now we get into the bankheist, and this film is really zipping along. We're still only a few minutes in and we've set up all the characters and we know exactly where this is going. It's a slick, successful robbery. Um, it's yeah, they're not daft, they get it done. Uh, they're masked, they do threaten with guns. Yeah, a bit of a William Tell bit with a small crossbow, a bit of a flourish, but no one is actually hurt, so you know, good, that's that's a good thing. And they get away. Except just as they speed off in the car, they almost run over an old lady who's walking a dog's, and everything's fine, she's fine, the dogs are fine, but she does see George's face in the car. An animal lover Ken is worried, but they're okay, it's all good.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Yeah, because he barely knocks the dog over.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

Yeah. George then uh with Wanda and Otto stores the diamonds in a safe in a lock-up. It's like a proper CD, like backstreet thing, isn't it? I feel like Prime Suspect had like lockups and it's like murderous places, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 20:30

Yeah, it reminded me of like something out of Minder the TV series with George Cole and Dennis Waterman. I nearly said Terry, but that was his character name.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So they the gang separate, the plan is to meet up in Heathrow uh a few days later. But moments after everyone's gone, first of all, we do see Wanda and Otto just checking that George has left.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

Because they don't trust him.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

No one trusts anybody.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

No, but then George does go, so they go, but then George comes back, and the music tells us he's up to no good.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Yeah, he removes the diamonds from the site.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

We don't we don't see that, but we Yeah, but you know what he's doing.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

There's no other reason why it's not see something. As soon as I see it, because I, like I said, I'd seen this before, but I couldn't remember it. I couldn't remember it was a heist movie or anything like that.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

That's really cool, you get to see it fresh though.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

But when I when he came back to the guy, I knew he was taking the diamonds. There's no other reason for it.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Obviously, but we don't see that yet. Anyway, Wanda and Otto uh go back home to the flat they're celebrating, and they do start to get it on, and this is the point where we absolutely unequivocally understand that they are not siblings.

SPEAKER_02 21:37

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 21:38

Um because there's a line that Wanda says that was cut from the nineteen ninety one BBC Boxing Day evening screening, which is Even if you were my brother, I'd still want to fuck you. Which I just think that's a great line.

SPEAKER_01 21:51

See, I can't I can't remember if that was in in the version that I watched because I watched this on Amazon Prime. Right. Right? Not that we're advertising for Amazon. Anyway. Um but the audio was out of sync. And it was really bizarre to watch it. I stopped it, paused it, came out of it, and went back in. I was just out of sync the entire time.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Nightmare.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Yeah. So it was a strange watch this.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

Okay. But their plan is they're going to ring the police and dob George in. They're going to shop him and say that he did the Hatton Garden robbery.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

And so Which I also think is quite funny that it is a Hat and Garden robbery because we a few years back had the Hatt and Garden Roberts.

SPEAKER_00 22:30

This is where the diamonds are, isn't it? This is a diamond place. Yeah, so yeah, it's the Hatton Garden robbery. He's arrested. The police turn up at the flat. However, before he lets them in, we do see him hide a tiny key inside Ken's fish food tub. Otto and Wanda then head to the lockup to get the diamonds for themselves. So just as Otto is trying to crack the safe code, we see Wanda's real plan. She's got a metal pipe, stood behind him, and she is about to whack him. She's not dash.

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Yeah, she's the one controlling everything in this.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Yeah, she's a great character, it's brilliant. But also, what makes me laugh is in 1991, I remember my dad pausing the video at this point to say, Do you understand what's going on?

SPEAKER_01 23:11

I was like, um, and he I I I don't think I did, but last time I watched it to go, hang on, what's going on here?

SPEAKER_00 23:19

So everyone's double crossing each other, basically, and Wanda was like hoping to be able to make off with the diamonds, except Otto cracks the safe code and there's no diamonds.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

It also makes me laugh the whole stethoscope onto the safe to crack that shit. Probably not.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

I don't know. Probably not. Uh but Otto is furious and he grabs his gun, he shoots the safe, he kicks the car and he screams and shouts because he is an irrational man baby. Yeah, he's spoiled. He's awful. And Wanda is a lot more considered, and she stops and thinks, and then she has to rethink the whole plan, and she says she's going to go and talk to George because she needs to find out where the diamonds have gone. And this is where our two sets of characters mix together. So George is with his barrister Archie and they're putting his defence together. Now, this passed me by back in the day, but I realise how much of a gangster George is. Because Archie's assistant is there, and he as as they finish their meeting, he whispers that Ken's got the fish food. So like George's obviously got people in all sorts of positions of authority that he's paying to keep him in the loop.

SPEAKER_01 24:21

He's like the proper gangster where the others are just like playing at it. Um Ken is too soft to be a proper gangster, but he's involved in it. He's sweet. So both the Americans, like she's she's uh completely manipulating everybody in all situations, and Otto is just he's just dumb. He's just dumb.

SPEAKER_00 24:45

But he doesn't think he is. No, no, he's constantly.

SPEAKER_01 24:48

He thinks he's really, really intelligent, but he's just dumb, and he just to counteract the fact that he isn't dumb, he just uses violence.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

Yeah, because he's a frustrated, angry man.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

He's just an angry man, he's just not frustrated, he's just angry.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Proper toxic. There's that line where she says, You think you're an intellectual, don't you ape? And every time I hear the word intellectual on anything, ever since then, I think, don't you ape? I just have that line in my head. It's it's branded into my soul.

SPEAKER_01 25:16

But he put Kevin Klein plays him really, very well. He's very over the top, but he does play him very, very well.

SPEAKER_00 25:23

He won best, I think, supporting actor, Oscar.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Really?

SPEAKER_00 25:27

Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah. This was nominated for loads of stuff. This, you know, I think it won BAFTAs, and maybe that was the only Oscar it won. Actually, I don't know. But um, yeah, it's it's a great performance. And also, I really like Kevin Klein, but I don't think I've ever seen him do another role where he's just seemed to be having this much fun.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

I haven't seen him in much, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 25:47

Okay. I've seen him in a few things. In and out. It's it's I can't imagine it holds up well, but it was good at the time.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Anyway, anyway, let's get back to the story. So uh Wanda does also then arrive at the Romance Centre, if that's what we're calling it. Um, and she's having to be very clever because she's acting, this is the character of Wanda, not Jamie Lee Curtis. She's acting in front of the police as though George is innocent, but then she's having to act in front of George about being uh Otto's sister because Otto is lurking in the background.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Yes, he really wants to see you. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 26:23

He was worried. Um and George doesn't trust him, obviously. And George is like, hmm, in order to get my sentence cut, I might say where the diamonds are, and I might also say who did the robbery with me. So they have to keep that Wanda is really uh balancing plates here, she has to keep everybody sweet. Um, and outside she carries on doing that when she leaves because she spots the barrister, she spots Archie, and she's just very good at flirting with him just enough to make him feel appreciated and special, but not in a kind of overtly obvious way. He's flattered, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

He's massively flattered.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Because middle-aged balding men always think that young sexy women are wanting to chat to them, it's really funny.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

Is that true?

SPEAKER_00 27:04

Yeah, it's like surely, come on, you know, you're being played, but anyway.

SPEAKER_01 27:08

But no well, he's actually not being played.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

He is here.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

He is at this moment, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:14

Yeah, this is absolute a play. Uh so she just wants to be able to ingratiate herself at this point, and in order to find out where the loot is. Ken later visits George in the Roman Centre, um, if that's what it is, and he and he's found the fish food and he's got the key, and he now has to find a new hiding place for the loot. While he's there though, Wanda and Otto are back at the flat. So this is where we get the full gist of Wander's hard on for Italian. And it's it's really funny.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

It's ridiculous, it's absolutely ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 27:46

It's funny though. It's a it's all the sex scenes are large.

SPEAKER_01 27:49

Yeah, they're all comedy, there's nothing gratuitous in them.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Well, it's well there's a bit of nudity that literally does not need to be there. But like, for example, I think it might be this scene. There's just a c there's just a full shot of Wanda getting changed, bra and knickers, shirt open, she stands there for a full three seconds, and then carries on getting changed. It did not need to happen, it was purely a bit of blue for the dads.

SPEAKER_01 28:13

I mean, yeah, uh you've just you've just put a hit the nail on the head, you know. Obviously, Jamie Lee Curtis absolutely stood an absolutely stunned body back in the day, probably still is now.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

Also irrelevant because she has a brain. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_01 28:28

She has qualities that are not physical. You're jumping ahead here because I was just about to say, she doesn't need to take clothes off in every film, like there's too many films. She was brilliant in every single role she's done. I I think she's an amazing actress, and I just dislike the fact that every film they were like, oh go on, just just it's when it feels tacked on, just for just for titillation.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

And yeah, I agree. There's times you think you wouldn't do that now, there's no reason for that to happen.

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Director. I mean, when when you get to the sex scene where uh it's a little bit later on, I think, is it with John Cleese's doing his thing, they don't show anything.

SPEAKER_00 29:06

No, it's all that's all the sex scenes are largely played for cards. But we get Otto based. I think Kevin Klein did a lot of improv in terms of mozzarella, lap major, and it's it yeah, it's it's so funny and so silly.

SPEAKER_01 29:20

He's just talking completely.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

It talks folks, yeah. Anything vaguely Italian. Um but while they're in the bedroom, just before they really get into it, Ken arrives back at the flat. Wanda spies him putting the little key into an ornamental treasure chest in the fish tank. Here's what happens next. Ken is distracted by Otto, who takes him outside the flat. Wanda then inside takes the key and puts it in her locket. There's a bit here where the way that Otto distracts Ken is by coming onto him pretending he's gay. And I don't think that would happen now. It's let's let's not use gay people as a sort of source of repulsion for our homophobic characters. You know, we don't need that, just rubbish.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

But it just felt completely out of sorts for how Otto was.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

Well no, he's obviously yeah, obviously he's he's pretending because he's trying to distract Ken, but it's also just the fact that the kind of being gay is the punchline or being gay is the kind of thing to use dangle.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

But also shit. One one of the things about Otto as a character was his masculinity. He was always trying to be the clever one or the the one who's violent and stuff. So it just seemed a bit.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

But again, you were equating then masculinity that not being gay, and that's a problem. It's very problematic.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

No, no, I don't mean you know what I mean. I'm talking about the character of what he would have been like.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

Well he's just a psycho, so he'll do anything, he'll do anything, and you think and he's he's cruel as well, so he's taunting, he taunts a lot. So he taunts Ken about his stutter, he taunts him, and he's just he's literally just doing this to kind of repulse him to get him off the sort of scent of what's actually happening, where they're sort of plotting away. So Wanda needs to find out where the loot is, and then she has this great line where she's on the phone and she's just pretending, and she says to Ken, Ken, somebody just called, which doesn't explain who that was because it was made up.

SPEAKER_01 31:12

And it was so dramatic.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

It doesn't it just I love it. I love all her lines. Um and she says that the the police know where the loot is, and he's like, Don't worry, I know where the loot is. So she's like, Cool, it's best you don't tell me. So she's playing everybody to keep everybody sweet. Wanda turns up at Archie's chambers because she still really does need to know a little bit more about what's going to happen if uh George is going to change his plea or if he's going to uh ha tell Archie where the loot is. Archie is utterly charmed by her. He's flattered, he thinks that she's really into him. She's playing this sort of, oh, I'm a student studying aspects of your legal system, and he's like, Oh, I'd love to love to help. You know, it's all that, and it's all very funny, until he realizes that she is actually um Wanda Gershwitz, who is George's alibi, and he will have to question her on the standing court.

SPEAKER_01 32:04

He can't speak to her, this is you he can't have anything to do with her.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

No, you completely no no, and so she then has to change tack completely because she's very clever, she's constantly reassessing. So she goes, Oh, I didn't come here to talk about stuffy lore or whatever it is, and she comes on to him, and this is one of my favourite scenes because there's two very funny bits in this. He's just like, Oh, you know, I can't speak to you. His phone goes, and his assistant says on the phone, your next appointment's here, at which point she whispers into his ear, I want to make love to you, or something like that. Yeah, and the assistant goes, What? Yeah, and then they have a big snog, and the door opens.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

No, he doesn't he doesn't snug her, she kisses him. She's doing this, she's kissing him, he's like in shock.

SPEAKER_00 32:50

He's completely shocked.

SPEAKER_01 32:51

And then as you say, the door opens up.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

The door opens, and then the next appointment is an elderly man, yeah, and uh she goes, bye, uncle. She leaves. And I've always found that very amusing anyway. Um, I'm sure it's not.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

Is he just the look on his face just dumb structure? He's constantly yeah. It's like what's just gone on?

SPEAKER_00 33:09

Because the thing with John Cleese is he historically, at this point certainly, had played the sort of stuffy posh or repressed English guy very well, and there's always that anger bubbling, the frustrated anger bubbling in Basil Faulty, or in in clockwise he plays a headmaster, which is a brilliant, very funny film, and I'll maybe one day we'll do it on here. But he just is this constant simmering rage that he sometimes manages to contain for a few minutes, but basically it's always there.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

See, this this is where I I feel like he's a bit underused.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

No, because that's the opposite of the point I was just about to make. Go on, you jump in, I'll come back in a minute.

SPEAKER_01 33:46

Well, he he always plays these characters who are quite funny, and this this it he's not really funny in this, you know. No to utilise John Cleese, you've got to use his talents, and I just felt like he was a bit underused. He's good, he was good at what he did, you know, but he was just he's more of the shouty sort of person.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

I really like him in this. I think his character in this is all of those things I said, it's stuffy and it's repressed and all of that. But there's a softness to him that we don't often well don't think I'd well I've never seen in anything else, I don't think. Not that I searched.

SPEAKER_01 34:20

So not in real life. Well, well, who can say?

SPEAKER_00 34:22

That's not over there. I don't know. But yeah, I just I think there's a softness and a vulnerability, and when he is he's utterly shocked that Wanda would try it on, even though we know she's playing him, but he's also utterly um not open to the possibility, but just utterly beguiled by someone being nice to him. Yeah. Because his whole life, it's all I mean, you know, at home he's not happy, and at work, um it's probably all it's all probably all men, let's face it back then. There's a it's there's a real sort of who who does who actually likes him? Nobody, it's all just work people or unhappy marriages. So it's fascinating, I think, that he's very different.

SPEAKER_01 34:57

The only people who would like him is the criminals he's representing.

SPEAKER_00 35:00

Oh, and I just think I really like his character in this. I think it's there's a vulnerability that we've not seen before. But now we do move on to a funny sex scene, but it's two sex scenes that have been clipped together, juxtaposed all the way through, and we see on the one hand, Otto and Wanda starting to undress each other. He is speaking Italian, so we know where this is going, and they start to shag. But interspersed with that is the I would say non-sexual, asexual, completely not lack of sexual not into it.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

Yeah. Archie and Wendy getting into their twin beds, uh, he's clipping his toenails, and also cutting the dry skin off his heels. It's just gross.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

It's just but it's so mundane and so run of the mill compared to the crazy athletic antics that are going on in the other scenes.

SPEAKER_01 35:50

But this is the thing, you know, where we touched upon earlier where Jamie Lee was in her underwear, with this, like there's a full sex scene, you don't need the only bit you see of it is legs stuck up in the air, it's like in a comedy.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

I read that she was laughing her head off at this and had to cover a face with pillows because of Kevin Klein's performance. Um but there's the bit where Otto finally finishes, and there's an article, I don't think I've referenced it yet, but there's an article, uh, a Vanity Fair article where all the sort of key players from the film got together, or were interviewed separately actually, but all their responses about the film were collated, and it's a really in-depth thing. It'll be linked in the show notes. So years later, Kevin Klein said this We decided that for the orgasm, he should look like his essential self, you know, a total idiot. During that sublime moment of release, we see him with his true colours, a dumb animal loony, and I love that his facial expression at the end of that scene is just like he's a child, he just holds it for so long. It's just ridiculous. Um, but yeah, I enjoyed that. Anyway, we need to get back to the bankheist plot because there's been a police lineup. Uh, because the old woman who spotted George's face when she was walking her dogs and he was escaping the robbery, she's correctly identified him. So that means that she's the only eyewitness, so she needs to be dealt with. And George tasks Ken with killing her, which is quite full on.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

Especially since Ken's such an animal lover, he's okay in killing off a person, but he would not touch any animal.

SPEAKER_00 37:21

Killing an old woman, no problem, but he's getting on it, you know. But Otto has clocked that this is what George has asked Ken to do, and he winds Ken up about it. You bets him a pound that he won't do it. Wanda's still trying to get Archie to open up, and he's adamant that they can't talk, and he's so he's sticking to the rules.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

You know, this is his professional, you know, but he does say, I have found a way we are allowed to talk to each other still, as long as we don't talk about the case, just so he makes sure he's still safe. He does say that a bit later, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:48

But um he's but he yeah, he's gutted that he can't speak to her because he still he really likes her. But one door over here is uh Wendy, his that his wife is going to the opera on Friday, so she decides that's when she's gonna make her move. So she gets all very sexily dressed, uh, in a little black dress. Which I think I'm not gonna I think that would still look nice today. It doesn't look like a dated outfit.

SPEAKER_01 38:08

No, no.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

I think it would, you know, there's there are definitely 80s fashions in this, but I think that was the nice. That was a nice outfit that feels timeless. And Otto is jealous as fuck. He drives her to Archie's and he just can't deal with it.

SPEAKER_01 38:21

Oh, that's funny.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

He can't deal with it.

SPEAKER_01 38:22

Well will they be touching of the breast?

SPEAKER_00 38:24

Yeah, you're gonna let him what is it, suck your tits? Yeah, he just can't handle it.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

And she What does she say? I think 20 million dollars is worth a little nuzzling. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:33

Um I can't remember if it's 20 million, but the word nuzzling was just it was. Yeah, so she's very just stop it, don't be stupid, whatever. I shouldn't say that obviously, because of his little catchphrase, don't call me stupid. Archie's at home and he's getting his supper. I'm saying supper because he's posh. I would never use the word supper for me.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

Yeah, but it was the weirdest, it was the weirdest supper ever.

SPEAKER_00 38:54

It was a pork pie, two apples, a stick of celery, and a lettuce leaf.

SPEAKER_01 38:59

With the celery put back into the actual fridge.

SPEAKER_00 39:02

I mean, yeah, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

There's a pork pie and celery and two apples.

SPEAKER_00 39:07

Yeah, yeah, go together. Uh so when Wanda turns up, he breaks, she breaks in because Otto's let her in, but Archie doesn't care because he's ecstatic to see her. And there's a bit here which I think is really sweet, and this is the bit where you're gonna disagree with me because you've already told me what you think about John Cleese. He's really John Cleese, Archie, very quietly, almost under his breath, looks her in the eye and says, You are the sexiest, most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my entire life. And he's so believable. I completely believe that Archie means it, is so overwhelmed. And it's it's not just a vulnerability, it's a real sadness that he's just his life hasn't been filled with amazing encounters and exciting people. His life, you feel like in that moment you're getting a real insight into everything that's gone before that we don't know about playing by the rules and sticking to the plan and doing the degree and going and doing the bar and all the things that you do where you play the rules and you stick to the game, but none of it's been fun.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Do you so a question for you? Is delivery of that was really good. I will say a lot of it. This is a comedy, but these moments are in there. A lot of softness. Do you think that changed Wanda's vision of him at that moment in time?

SPEAKER_00 40:21

I don't know, it's a comedy, isn't it? I think it just shows that there's heart to this film and their storyline is the heart and amidst predominant silly comedy.

SPEAKER_02 40:32

Silly.

SPEAKER_00 40:32

It's silly comedy, and that's that's what it is, and it's good, and we enjoy that. But this just anchors it a little bit to something that keeps it feeling nice. I don't know. I just felt I feel really sorry for it.

SPEAKER_01 40:44

It was a nice it was a nice scene, I'll give it that, and then hilarity just comes straight after it. Slapstick.

SPEAKER_00 40:51

So yeah, so there's a whole bunch of things that happen. Wanda and Archie are getting it on, but then Otto turns up, Archie doesn't see him, Wanda does, so she's constantly trying to distract Archie to get rid of Otto, but then Wendy and Porsche come back early because there's been a flat tire, and Archie sees them and he's trying to distract them and get rid of them. Uh, and then he does this really funny thing where he says to Wendy, let's go to the pub. Oh yeah. She goes, Archie, we haven't been to the pub for 15 years. No, but it'd be rather nice for Porsche to see it now, and it just makes me laugh because it's this it's the again. This is the Basil Faulty moment where it's far, he's running around, he's just the type at this moment in time.

SPEAKER_01 41:30

It is. Um The screams where Wanda's hiding behind the door. And then the door gets closed and he screams and she's moved somewhere else. We hadn't seen it.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

It's brilliant, and it's played really well, and everyone does it brilliantly. In um in 1991, my grandma had rung, um, and so my mum had left the lounge and gone to answer the phone, she'd been chanting here for a bit, and me and my dad had carried on with the film. When my mum came back into the room, my dad rewound to this scene to say, You've got to watch this, this is brilliant. And my mum watched it and just was like, Yeah, it's just I just don't find it funny.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

I think I suppose I suppose if you take the one scene out of context from the rest of it, it probably yeah, but it's it's quite a funny scene.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

It's very funny, my dad was laughing his head off. Um, but anyway, the upshot of all this is that um Otto ends up having to blag a load of nonsense to Wendy about being in the CIA, and Wendy doesn't give a she completely calls him on it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 42:24

She's like, Oh, she just sees right through.

SPEAKER_00 42:25

He says, Don't call me stupid, and she goes, Why in earth not?

SPEAKER_01 42:28

That was quite funny. He was not amused by that.

SPEAKER_00 42:31

No, no, she just didn't care. Um, but anyway, Wanda uh crawls behind the sofa, but as she does her locket falls off. Then Portia finds the locket, because there's a whole comedy of errors, and Archie then has to pretend that it's for Wendy. Now we're back to Ken. And he's on his mission to kill the old lady.

SPEAKER_01 42:51

So this is one of my funniest bits of the movie where he's trying to kill the old lady.

SPEAKER_00 42:56

Yeah, um, yeah, it's funny. He so he's already he manages to blag his way into her house as a sort of, I don't know, checking the meter type guy's in some sort of uniform. Uh, and he's still he's stolen some of her clothes, so he can now get a really lethal, bloodthirsty dog on the scent for her. So what makes me laugh is he lets the dog out. He's covered in blood. Yeah, because the dog's with a sack of area. So anyway, uh he lets the dog out. The dog misses the old lady, but gets one of the little teeny tiny terribles. Yeah, the little terry is gone.

SPEAKER_01 43:30

But you can see her like a heart as you know, she's there's definitely you know how there's a whole thing about like people, some people really don't like to see animals being hurt, which I I don't want to see animals being hurt.

SPEAKER_00 43:42

Can I put that out here? But this is so comedic and so kind of the irony of Ken being an animal lover and then this going wrong, so wrong for him. And it's not a real they've they've not really killed a dog, it's fine, you know. All that I just think it's just a brilliant least.

SPEAKER_01 43:57

He's absolutely heartbroken, he's just.

SPEAKER_00 44:00

A dog's got, and there's a funeral scene which has choir boys singing by a grave. And I did see online, and I will put the link to the the website in the show notes. It was uh tbtropes.org. There's a link that has the translated Latin, and so the choir boys are singing, have mercy, Lord, have mercy, Lord, the dog is dead. No way. Apparently. Just really in death and they're really dog. But that's what it says online. Archie's arranged a tryst in a Thameside flat for him and Wanda. He sent a note which we see Otto read because he reads Wanda's mail, because obviously he's a wrong one. Um, and he says he promises he'll have the locket and then the address. Wanda turns up to the flat. Now, before we carry on, I love this flat. It's right on my street. Bare brick and exposed staircase. Love it.

SPEAKER_01 44:46

I've been somewhere very close to there. There's the there's a there's a a basic club or a venue hideout, and former company used to work for hide it out for them, and it's right on the river. And I'm sure the shot It's a long river, Phil. Yeah, but it's it's quite close to the Tower Bridge, and the shot looked like it was looking over where it was.

SPEAKER_00 45:12

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know exactly where it is. I'm sure it will say on the IMDB filming locations, but um I just I like the flat. I love a staircase in the middle, just there. And a balcony, yeah, I love all that. Anyway, but what the thing about this scene is when we see Wanda and Archie just, you know, in a sort of neutral space, they get on really well, they laugh together, they make jokes. That's not something Wanda does with Otto, and it's also not something Archie does with Wendy. Yeah, so neither of them have anyone to have a laugh with and sort of have a good bit of chat.

SPEAKER_01 45:42

So it shows they do have chemistry together.

SPEAKER_00 45:44

It does feel a little bit, it's starting to feel a little bit legitimate from Wanda, but she does need her locket back.

SPEAKER_02 45:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

Uh and he hasn't been able to get it back. Uh so he's bought Wanda another one, a new one, very fancy, but obviously that's no good, it's not about the locket for real. Um but anyway, they're getting closer, and as they laugh together, and he carries her up to bed. Uh, they joke about how Otto turned up last time, and Wanda makes a few gags about Otto and his his lack of understanding. Uh, and then we have the payoff. So Archie says, This is a the quote How can a girl as bright as you have a brother that's so and then Otto's face looms between them because he's been following them and he's broken it, and he goes, Don't call me stupid, and it's just it's just another brilliant like screams, farce, everything's kicking off.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

And I like I like the scene now that's you're obviously you're about to say where he hangs them outside the window. That's what this leads to, and then it's it's the whole caught eye, did not mean what I said, uh the way the way it was all but I think that scene was actually filmed. Yeah, yeah, he was upside down.

SPEAKER_00 46:48

Yeah, what a nightmare.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

I mean but if you look at the background, there's people actually looking up, going pointing. Yeah. So whether whether that was actually planned or whether that's just people going, hang on, there's a man hanging out the window there.

SPEAKER_00 47:01

Madness. So while a lot's going on, Ken is still on his mission uh to kill Mrs. Cody, the elderly lady. And this time he's gonna run her over as she's walking with her two remaining dogs. Um, except he has another mishap. He puts his foot down while in disguise as a Jamaican man.

SPEAKER_01 47:18

I have no idea. And also, that wouldn't happen today.

SPEAKER_00 47:22

No, but the fact I find it really funny, the fact that it's just so random. There's no reason for it's a reason for it.

SPEAKER_01 47:29

He doesn't need to be actually stupid. If he's going to run it over and kill her, he doesn't need to be disguised.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

No, he does. It's just so stupid. Anyway, obviously, we can guess what's happening. He puts his foot down, but he kills another dog, and there's another. Oh I know, it's flattened, I know, I know it's Oh, that's it. Anyway, um, but yeah, it's just this the comedy doesn't stop really. But Wanda is furious with Otto because he's basically all his jealousy's messed up their plan of seducing Archie to find out where the diamonds are. Um so she tells him he has to apologise to Archie, which is something he really struggles to do. He can't even say the words when he's practicing. He drives around to Archie and Wendy's massive house, and as he's sort of rehearsing what he's gonna say, he hears a window break because the house is being robbed.

SPEAKER_01 48:16

Oh yeah, this this was quite funny. I didn't hear this one.

SPEAKER_00 48:20

A sort of yeah, kind of black-coated, gloved burglar, nicking stuff, or putting, you know, just ransacking things. But it's Archie faking a breaking so he can retrieve the locket. But there's a really funny bit where he's sort of just picking things up randomly and he picks up like a vase or an ornament and he just happily drops it on the floor and then just shakes his fist up into the sky because he's so happy that some really obviously shit thing he's had to put up with for years is broken. Um, but anyway, uh uh yeah, Archie doesn't bank on the fact that Otto is there because he comes in, bundles him into some sort of blanket, knocks him out cold because he thinks he stopped a burglar. And it's only Archie's knocked out that he realizes it is him.

SPEAKER_01 49:01

Yeah, and then he gets more angry and says, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, and keeps kicking him. Sorry, sorry, and keeps kicking him.

SPEAKER_00 49:09

But anyway, Archie wakes up um and manages to get the locket back before Wendy turns up. He hides it at his mouth. Yes, sort of gets it really quickly before Wendy walks into the room. But he manages to get the locket back to Wanda when they meet in the flat. So he meets uh Wanda at the flat again, and it's again more comedy lols as a sex scene because they start to undress, and this she wants to know if he can speak Italian. Yeah. So that's my little thing of okay, this could work for her. She can make this work. But he can't, but he can speak Russian. Oh, he can, but he doesn't know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:40

He can, he said, but but it's it's ugly, he said Russians rush better as he starts.

SPEAKER_00 49:45

Yeah, and this makes Wanda horny.

SPEAKER_01 49:48

Roll across the floor. It's a to the point where that was when she's gonna fall off the balcony.

SPEAKER_00 49:53

No, she's like writhing around a rope on a mezzanine. Yeah, um, but while that's all happening, he's getting undressed, and John Cleese is very good at physical comedy. So even what is essentially a strip tease, although it's not really teasing, but he's just getting undressed for sex, one bit of clothing at a time, and he kind of bounces his socks off each arm and he's turning around and twirling, and it's all very funny. And as he's doing that, she says, because she's like, This is are you rich?

SPEAKER_01 50:25

Yeah, she was you rich.

SPEAKER_00 50:27

Because this is this could be real now. This could be the this could be her man.

SPEAKER_01 50:30

And what's his answer?

SPEAKER_00 50:32

Uh no, it's all his wife's money. Yeah, when it's all Wendy's, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

Which I don't understand because he's a barrister and he's a top-top barrister.

SPEAKER_00 50:39

I know, but I think of all the money they spend on things, you know, living that life. I think she's got family money. I think which is she's very, you know, she's she's pretty posh, isn't she? I think that's the difference. So anyway, no, he's not rich. Um but anyway, he carries on getting undressed, but he's interrupted when the front door opens and a family walk in.

SPEAKER_01 50:57

He's fully naked, fully bolocar. You see him actually take off his underbundes. Buddies, yeah. Um, and you see a little bit of John Cleese's pubic area. Oh, did you?

SPEAKER_00 51:08

I didn't I didn't zoom in like you clearly did.

SPEAKER_01 51:10

I didn't zoom in at all, it was just visible. Um so you know when this family walk in, he is fully naked in front of the.

SPEAKER_00 51:17

What makes me laugh is in order to hide himself, he takes a photograph and it's a framed photo of the woman who's walked in, the mum of the family. So her face is right in his groin. Really amuses me. Um anyway, yeah, they've they've hired the flat. He thought it was free because one of his barrister friends was away. So, yeah, just a mix-up, but it's a moment of light relief, but it's stopped them in the tracks. Um, so what's interesting in that Vanity Fair article, so this is I find this fascinating. So Jamie Lee Curtis is interviewed as part of it, and she explains that John Cleese in the talking about it, the build-up had wanted her to be walked in on as she was getting changed, and that would be part of the film. Yeah. And she basically said, No, because that's not funny. And I've you know that if I she's ba I think she said something like, if I'm naked, that's all anyone's gonna be looking at, they're not gonna be thinking about the comedy or the film or the plot. So she said, No, you should be the one that gets naked. And he agreed. Well, that's grass. Because it is does feel really gratuitous that that's part oh, it'd be really funny if a woman is getting untr un undressed and someone walks in. Well, would it be? I don't think it would be funny, John. Anyway.

SPEAKER_01 52:25

Well, no, that shows they you know, you've praised the script on this.

SPEAKER_00 52:29

I think the script's very good.

SPEAKER_01 52:30

Yeah, but that shows some poor script writing because the funnier thing is him. Well, that's the point.

SPEAKER_00 52:35

And what what this article in Vanity Fair made clear was it was a very collaborative uh thing. They had the script, but then it changed as they were all working on it together and workshopping it. So, you know, she had her input, which is great because that makes so much more sense.

SPEAKER_01 52:47

And and respect to John for actually listening. No, I mean some people would just say no, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 52:53

But yeah, just but it makes so much more sense. That was a funny, a funny scene. But the levity doesn't last because later on Archie rings wonder and ends things, and it's just quite quick on the phone, and but they both seem really sad. She seems sad, and the music tells us that they're both sad.

SPEAKER_02 53:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:12

Because we're rooting for these two by now. These are the heart of the film. Because we're not rooting for Otto, and we're not really rooting for Ken to kill an old woman, even though we're not.

SPEAKER_01 53:20

And also, we're not really asked about the heist because No, because George is not really anyone we care about, you know.

SPEAKER_00 53:25

So these two are the people we care about. And it's really interesting to see this scene because Wanda now is showing vulnerability because she's the woman that had planned to kill Otto and had shopped George to the police. So she's she's a you know, she's a tough woman, but she's sad that you know the guy she was trying to seduce for her own ends has dumped her. So I think this is another moment of vulnerability from our stronger characters. Bit of heart in the film. When Archie gets home, he's accosted by Otto again outside the house, and he finally manages to apologise. But this is when Wendy overhears from the window, um, overhears about Wanda, about robbing his his own house. It's not ideal at all. Wendy's now uh heard all of it. There is a bit, I'm pretty sure this was cut as well. So there's a bit where he says, Otto says about his sister, again, you know, inverted commas, pork away, pal. Yeah right? And I didn't know what that meant when I was 30. But then the next line that was definitely cut was fuck her blue. Right? That was definitely caught from 1991, that was not on my video. Um so these these things stand out to me when I hear it.

SPEAKER_01 54:30

It was so out of sync, it was probably in there, I just didn't catch up on it.

SPEAKER_00 54:33

Right, back to Ken and Mrs. Cody. She is now taking her one remaining terrier on a walk.

SPEAKER_01 54:39

And this this one, it's so slapstick, it's untrue.

SPEAKER_00 54:44

So Ken is he's lined up a sniper's rifle from the house opposite, and so she leaves her house, he shoots at a pulley that's winching up heavy concrete or something on the scaffolding, and it lands smack down on the last dog. Yeah. And kills the dog.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

But wouldn't it be Bruden's just to shoot the woman rather than this this contrived way.

SPEAKER_00 55:07

Suppose it looks more like it's an accident or something, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 55:10

Yeah, more contrived, you know.

SPEAKER_00 55:12

But Ken's gutted and he goes comes out of the house, walks across the road because there's a little um gathering of people around, and he's just distraught. But then he sees, hurrah, the shock of her last dog being killed has meant she's died of a heart attack. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 55:27

It's so bad, it's so bad. And then everyone's really sad and he starts laughing.

SPEAKER_00 55:31

He starts laughing, he's made it, he's done it, he's completed his mission. Uh his excitement doesn't last because he brags to Otto that he owes him a pound. Yeah. Um, but he lets it slip it slip that the loot is near the airport. So very quickly, then this all kind of is be tumbled towards the end. Otto turns up and we see the next thing Ken is tied up to a chair, uh, and Otto is forcing him to tell him where the loot is. This scene is not my favourite scene.

SPEAKER_01 55:59

No, because I hate this scene. Because one, uh I'm probably gonna jump ahead. Go on. He stuffs chips up his nose, but one with tomato sauce, and and I don't like tomato sauce, so I'm on my nose will be just absolutely horrendous.

SPEAKER_00 56:12

That's not the bit I don't like.

SPEAKER_01 56:14

But then shoves the pear in his problem, and you generally hear how much he's like trying to struggle breathing, and that like really goes through me.

SPEAKER_00 56:22

I have no issue with any of that. I can't bear seeing Otto put apparent live fish in his mouth. It grosses me out, and the fact he's eating them that grosses me out, and I can't even think about it. I can look at the pear, I can look at the chips. I know it's sort of that's not a nice thing to experience.

SPEAKER_01 56:40

I know it's like he's really struggling to breathe there.

SPEAKER_00 56:44

Yeah, isn't that funny? We have different things, we can't go.

SPEAKER_01 56:47

The other thing that that like kind of freaks me out about the way he sort of tortures him, his mouth is that wide open with the pear, and it's shoved in there. It's not like he can open his mouth to get it out, it's it's wide as points, his mouth.

SPEAKER_00 57:00

I mean Otto's not a nice guy.

SPEAKER_01 57:01

I know, but I'm just thinking about having to endure that as an actor to go through must have been horrendous as well.

SPEAKER_00 57:07

Okay, that's solidarity with Michael Palin. I just can't bear the fish. I can't bear I can't I don't even like looking at goldfish with my eyes because I don't like I don't know, I think it's because I eat fish, I don't want to see fish swimming, but I can't bear the idea that Otto is eating them. It just grosses me out. Anyway, that's we've got different things that we can't bear. Um so he eats the fish, he threatens And he eats the fish called Wanda. Wanda, the fish called Wanda, I know. Um but he does end up managing to wheedle out where the safe deposit box is. So Otto rings Wanda and she's waiting to testify in court for George, uh, and he says he knows where the diamonds are. So this is what Wanda needs to know, so maybe she's now back on with Otto. In court, Wanda's master plan continues. So Archie's questioning her uh that she's supposed to be George's alibi, and so she says, Yeah, no, uh George was at home. Uh, but then she says that but he he left the house at the time of the robbery with a so-and-off shotgun.

SPEAKER_01 58:03

Yeah, I didn't know where they'd be going with a so-and-off shotgun.

SPEAKER_00 58:08

How'd you know it was that time? Well, I looked at the clock and I wonder I thought, I wonder where he's going with that sound enough shotgun. Brilliant. It's delivered so. It's brilliant. But this means that George loses it and absolutely runs a mock in court, jumps over it, yeah, kicks off, and he's like put he's uh sort of roughing up Archie because he thinks that there's something going on between them, which is right. Um, and the court gets cleared and it's a whole thing. Um there's a really great line at the end because Wendy is in the gallery for some reason, and probably because she knows that like stuff's going on here, and she says, It's my husband, he's been hit, and she runs over to him and then she hits him. Yeah, she hits slaps him across the face. So she can stick this marriage right in your bottom. Um, I love her lines, I think all her lines are brilliant. So Archie, this is where I think he makes a decision. This is me just interpreting it. He makes a decision here, which is basically fuck it, I'm not playing by the rules anymore. Because this is where he starts to do illegal things or plan to do illegal things. He now needs to find out where the diamonds are from George, and George tells him that Ken knows. So then he grabs Wanda off the street. She's tried to escape out of a toilet window or whatever, but you know, she he grabs her, um, makes sure they've got the passports, and then they head to Kent's. Well, yes, but they they've got to go to Ken's to find out where the diamonds are. So Archie's just thought, right, this is it now, I'm I'm I'm stopping being this stuffy English guy that I've you know gone on about the stereotype so much. This is now life is for living. Archie gets to the flats and he saves Ken. And this is a really interesting scene. He has a nightmare of a time trying to find out the name of the airport hotel, which is the Cathcart Towers Hotel.

SPEAKER_01 59:43

Yeah, because of the scene.

SPEAKER_00 59:44

Yeah. Now, here's the thing. I read, I think it might have been in the Vanity Fair article, sorry to overquote it. This when John Cleese wanted to write this thing with um Charles Crichton, he didn't have any idea what it was gonna be initially, but the only thing he knew he wanted to include was a scene where someone with a stammer is needs to impart really vital information in a pressurised situation, but isn't able to. And this was this comedy scene he had that he wanted to sort of include in it somehow. So this came before anything else.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:17

So the whole whole film was wrote around this scene.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:20

This well, yeah, this is this was a scene that he saw be long before. And I don't know, I think it still has comedy value. It does, in the sense that like Michael Palin's playing it where he's desperately wanting to help, yeah, and then there's a and it takes ages, and in the end, he writes it down and John Clee's sort of arch he reads it out, Cathcott Towers Hotel, and then within a split second after that, Ken says, Yeah, Cathcott Towers Hotel. Yeah, I thought it's not that was funny, but how much would you play on this? It feels maybe we wouldn't do this today. There's loads to talk about. I'm going to talk about this afterwards because Michael Powell's done a whole thing about this, but yeah, there is there are still calm de elements in it, but it still makes me feel a little bit icky.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:03

It was uncomfortable seeing the scene where he's trying to say it, but it was funny where he goes yesterday. Well, he says it as soon as it said, yeah. And it's and I thought that was quite funny.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:12

And it's again, it's the more the it's the facial expression afterwards. He's in shock for ages afterwards while Archie's still trying to run around getting stuff. So, anyway, Otto's already gone with Wanda in the car, he's sort of driven off, so now Archie has to go and follow to the airport. So now we're into the final scenes. Archie, Ken, Wanda, and Otto are all getting to the airport. Wanda's got rid of Otto by this point. She's kind of escaped. He's locked into a cleaning cupboard or something.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:36

Yeah, and she breaks off the handle so he can't get out.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:38

She says, Ciao, stupidissimo, which I enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:41

Um, she tries to ring Archie, but he's not answering, so she does try and ring Archie. Uh, but then she heads to the plane. Ken gets checked in as luggage, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:51

That that was quite funny when when Archie got there. Are you got any luggage and Ken's on the conveyor belt?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:57

Yeah, you know, that's how he managed to get through. Um this is all pre-like 9-11 security checks, obviously. So that leaves Otto and Archie, because Otto um shoots his way out of the out of the closet. Um, Otto and Archie come face to face. So there's a lot more English for American posturing going on. They start to box and Otto ultimately threatens him with his gun. So it does look like Archie's a goner. But after lots more, you know, slagging off each other's countries, Ken is here to save the day. He's found a steamroller.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:30

Oh, that was funny. I mean, how how would Otto not notice he stood in wet concrete?

SPEAKER_00 1:02:36

Uh Otto is in the wet concrete, and Ken is come along with the steamroller and literally is like justice for Wanda, or he's actually shouting revenge to be fair. Um, and Otto's out of bullets, and he manages to flatten Otto into the freshly laid concrete, which means his stutter goes.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:54

So the last thing we hear from Ken is him saying how much wood would a wood chuck chuck, I can't say it, if a wood chuck could chuck wood.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:01

Right. I don't know whether you know there's a scene, it's after this thing's John Cleese running to the air playing or something like that. And in the background, you can see all the police approaching Ken, right? If you look, everyone's approaching Ken towards the steamroller. Um, so I presume he's just gonna rest and he's going to prison.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:22

Oh. Yeah. Well that's not what the end title say.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:25

Does it no? No. So if you look, there's always I've never noticed the police there, to be honest.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:30

Um Archie bores the plane, he re reunites with Wanda, uh, but then a concrete covered Otto is left behind on the runway as they take off with a new light. Well he climbed onto the wing.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:40

He climbed the wing, and as they get fly off, he gets blown off. But he's just been crushed by a steamroller.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:46

How much would apparently he was supposed to die in early early rites of it, but then they decided it was less comedic, so they just made it funny. But yeah, the end titles are. I mean, again, this is again pure comedy, it's a silly uh Wonder and Otto, uh sorry, Wonder and Archie live in somewhere in South America, Ken is Minister for Justice. It's like a whole thing, it's a silly. Um, but yeah, that is a fish called Wonder. So, I'm gonna ask you lots of things. I think I might know some of this. Did you enjoy it?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:22

I thought it was okay. Oh, sod off.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:24

No, no, no, no. Have you been laughing your head off as we've been talking about?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:27

Yeah, because it did have some funny moments. I'm glad I've watched it again. Right, because I couldn't remember it. Yeah, but it's not a film I will now go back to again, right? I feel like I've done it maybe another five or six years or something. I've got, I forgot what that was about, I'll watch it again. But it's not something if it was on, I would stop what to watch it. Um it did have its funny moments. Like I liked the scene of the dogs, I liked the idiocy of uh the idiocy, even that too, of Otto. I mean Jamie D. Curtis is very watchable in anything she does. She's brilliant, you know, uh absolutely icon. But I feel like it's one of those films where I'm glad I've watched it again, but it needs time again before I'd watched it.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:13

Well it's interesting you say that because you so we were supposed to record this pod like a month ago, and you basically stood me up twice before Christmas, and then after Christmas, you stood me up twice. So busy. Whatever, whatever. But basically, whenever we talk about a film, I like to have watched it the day before. Yeah because it's in my head then. If I've if it's been a week, it's too long. I need to be able to know it really well. Now to be fair, I do know this film really well because of historical watchings, but I've watched it four times in the last month. And it it it has I haven't been bored of it. I just haven't. I've still la I still laugh every time, out loud at you know, the ones I've told you I'll laugh at. But it doesn't I mean, I don't need to watch it again for a while 'cause I've done it quite a lot recently. But I've enjoyed having to watch it again. Whereas you know, we what did we do last week? We did um Star Wars, right? If you'd cancelled on me four times and I'd have had to watch Star Wars four four times, I would have been fuming with it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:06

See, I could watch four Star Wars four times in a day.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:08

I could for God's sake.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:10

Four times in a day.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:12

But yeah, it's interesting that you say you don't need that. You need you know you don't need to see it for a while now.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:17

Or is I feel like I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Um and I as I say, I you know, I forgot that it was a heist movie. I've I forgot the entire plot. I just remember it was John Cleese, J W. Curtis, and I I thought it was Eric Idle, I forgot it was Michael Palin. Another one, the other Monty Bython. The other Monty Python. Um and I remember there was another American in it, but I couldn't remember much about it. Yeah, um, but it it was an enjoyable watch. It looks very dated.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:52

Yeah, it's 88.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:53

But I can watch other films from 88 and not look quite as dated as this. Um it feels like it didn't have a lot of budget to it and it didn't need it really, but and I I just I just think it looked very, very 80s compared to a lot of other 80s films.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:10

I would say, and this is just a hypothesis, there's the kind of things that you like and that you re-watch and that you love from the 80s, are they often like sci-fi fantasy stuff? So it's it's not the cars on the street and the fashions because it's all some random universe.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:26

No, because no, because our pod that's gonna be on next week is an 80s film, and I don't think that's as this.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:36

Well we'll talk about that next week.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:37

I don't know whether and and this could be part of the issue. Um I think we touched upon it earlier within the podcast. This is a film that's made to broach both sides of the Atlantic. So the fact that they've show only showed quintessential British things Englishness, yeah, to appear to America, like the cars to use and things like that. I I think that's dated it a little bit. Also, there is a couple of scenes where Otto's driving around in an American car within London. That wouldn't even fit in the rope.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:08

Oh, I know, but that's what's funny. Whenever you see him driving, he's always on the wrong side of the road.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:12

The wrong side of the road. Yeah, a shout out the other person.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:18

Yeah. Um what I when I stopped to think about, I mean I I you know I like this film, what when I stopped to think about it, it did occur to me that everybody is white.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:26

It feels so incredibly dated in that sense.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:30

It just, this is a very oh, I don't know. I mean, it's John Cleese and his mates, isn't it? And I have no problem with making things with your friends, your Monty Python pals, and the director that he he was mates with, and you know, it's all fine. And he's you know, you approach Jamie Lee after watching Trading Places, all this is fine. But everyone's white and it does smack with the incredibly dating.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:48

This is actually a black person in the film, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:50

I know, it's any anyone of any kind of. I didn't think about it till then. I think maybe the woman vacuuming in the airport might be.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:57

Oh, possibly, yeah, possibly cringe.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:00

Yeah, I think she is a little bit. Oh, it's really cringe, it's cringe, it's cringe. So, yeah, that's that dates it to me, but I don't I don't the cars are I don't care about the cars. We need to talk about Ken Stutter because what this is the insight I have, right? So, you know, I used to be a teacher, and there was some staff training one night after school or an inset day, I can't remember, from the speech and language team from the local authority that I work for, and they opened their training, and it was basically about how to um support kids with various different things in terms of speech and language, and they opened their training with a video, and it was Michael Palin, and he's a patron of something or other, and he basically said his dad had a really sort of severe stutter, and when he played the part of Ken, it was almost like an homage to his dad. So that absolutely was like, huh? Really?

SPEAKER_01 1:09:49

Right, but that's so why didn't his dad steamroller Kevin Klein to get rid of his.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:57

So and as a result, he sort of has done loads of work with kids and all this kind of thing. So that was I reckon about 15, 20 years ago. I did a quick Google to see what if that's still a thing, and there's basically the Michaels Palin Centre for stammering exists online, which fascinates me. Does that count countle out? It makes me feel less icky. Yeah. Because I think if I didn't know any of that, I would feel incredibly uncomfortable. Doesn't mean it still think it plays great, and I don't think we'd write that that script the same way. We'd certainly give more I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:31

But if he's doing it as a homage to his dad, then I I have less of an issue with that now. Yeah. And I would possibly find it more funny.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:39

But I also think that I wonder whether some of the I think there was a bit of a backlash to the way his character went, and I think he thought, oh, you know, I'm gonna put some work into this to show that I am supportive, maybe. I don't know, I don't know. I'm guessing that. Because it's still it could it still feels icky to me.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:54

But even if but not as much. You know, up to 15 years ago, there's Michael Palin, Stutter Foundation, and I mean that's a good while after the film, so it's not like he's just done it for a year or two just to keep people off the street.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:06

He's probably invested in this. A fair play to him, he's doing you know good stuff. Um, but it does make me see things slightly, oh, okay, you know, in a different way, which you know, interesting. So much of this film or the comedy in this film is the pillaring of English culture versus American culture or English history versus American history, and this I always find fascinating because, like we talked about, the Englishness that we see in this film feels like another world from my life and my experience. I've been I'm born in England, I live in England. I've always lived in England, but I don't have you know tea on the lawn and kick off that Sandersons have sent the wrong flowers and have a daughter with two ponies.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:50

But that's what Americans think we do.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:51

Well, it's it's serotypical, but this is my point when you know think about like a cultural identity. I hate the scouse not English thing. Yeah?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:01

Yep, I agree with that.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:02

It feels really silly, but it's a thing, and I don't feel that mainly because I'm not overtly scouse, but I do feel much more connected to saying that I'm northern, which feels vaguely an identity, than saying I'm English. Because when I think of England, I think of Miss Marple Villages and Tea on the Lawn and Vicarages and Cricket and all this kind of stereotype, and it is a stereotype that is not actually anything I experience every any time of my life. And I I'm fascinated by that that all of this stuff that all the English stuff in this film, all the references, or John Cleese's comments or Otto's comments about it, isn't any Englishness I've ever understood or experienced.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:41

No, the other the other thing I always find in films like this when they show off England and Englishness, there's never any rain. It's always like sunny, like you go to these villages, like like you say, like little Miss Marple village, they're always sunny little villages, raining and stuff like that. I mean, anybody lives in the world.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:57

In the northern though, innit? It's northern. Rain is much more northern than.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:00

I know, and I got absolutely soaked. Oh, he's still banging on about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:04

Okay, moving on. So now it's time for some other people's thoughts.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:08

Right. So, in terms of problematic stuff, this is from a website called not left-handedfilmguide.co.uk, talking about Fishkawanda. Obviously, this will be in the show notes. And this was written in 2020. And they do deal with Ken's stutter, and their take on it is that they get away with it because the joke isn't Ken, the joke is on the people. Otto's the joke, so it's the response of Otto being an absolute you know fool, or it's you know, you see Archie's frustration, kind frustration, because he's being kind, he's not horrible when he's trying to get out the information about the hotel. But what they do say is worse that's that is really noted, uh, is the casual homophobia. Um, Otto pretending to be gay to distract and disgust, Ken isn't cool. And it does also mention the fact that this it's sort of focused quite a bit on Jamie Lee Curtis being in underwear or wearing skimpy clothes, whatever.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:59

But stuff we did talked about naturally anyway.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:03

Um yeah, so this was again from the Van De Fair article. It's a great article, you should definitely read it. I know you won't. Um and this is about the initial ideas of it. So in June 1983, it started here. Cleese and veteran director Crichton, that's Charles Crichton, who are f who were fully intended to make a movie together since the late 60s sit in a hotel pool in France. They begin developing the story of a fish called Wonder, and this is what I told you before. Cleese's one idea is a character with a stutter having to impart some important information. Crichton wishes for a scene in which a character is run over by a steamroller. So, like, just spitballing round a pool, two scenes, two scenes that later come into it.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:41

Um see, I I kind of think that's how action movies are born. They think of a scene and then build a film around the scene. Maybe so it's quite interesting that this is a comedy film where they come up with two scenes and then they fleshed out a story to fit those scenes.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:54

Yeah, absolutely. Um, and then the other thing from this article, and it was sort of about the authenticity of the characters, and this will ans this will answer some of your issues you have with the character of Archie. Um, so this is John Cleese, and he says, We had a read-through in '86, and every one of the characters worked except for Archie. Michael, Palin, said, just take the character down a bit. I was pushing too much because I wanted Archie to be funny, and I needed to realise that the big laughs are going to come from Kevin and Michael, and the stuff I was doing with Jamie needed to be authentic and quite real. So it'd be interesting, you it'd be interesting to see what those early read-throughs were like when he was basically doing his show.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:31

It'd be Basil Falty, wouldn't he?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:33

Yeah, I'm assuming. Um, but I really like that relationship. It I the way he the softness, the sadness, the vulnerability, I really like that. I believe in that.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:42

You couldn't you couldn't imagine Jamie Lee Curtis to fall in love with Basil Faulty. You know, Wanda to fall in love with. Yeah, Jamie Lee Curtis. I mean Schmidt's done, yeah. Um but yeah, I mean I get your point, but but I also think if you're gonna use John Cleese, you've got to use him for laughs because he is a very funny person.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:02

Yeah, I think he does funny in this, he does that scene where it's the farce where everyone comes into the room, but yeah, I don't know. I just thought this is one of those, this is one role I really warmed to him. And always I did then, I did it when I was 30, you know, warmed to him, and I was rooting for him in Wanda, and I still like watched it, like I say, four times in the last one. Thank you, Phil, for standing me up. And definitely continue to warm to him, even though I maybe now have some reservations about you know various things I've already said. Anyway, um I'm gonna end with our friend Roger Ebert.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:36

Oh dear.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:37

No, to be honest, it's really interesting because he he loved it. Um and I found it interesting. I mean, he just thought it was funny, and I'll link the review in the show notes, but what's interesting to me is he did not like in any way the comedy, the Engl the British comedy in a similar era, I think it was 1986, of Shirley Valentine, but he thought this was great. And I just think is that because the Englishness he sees in this is the stereotypes, the one that appeals to Americans. The Shirley Valentine was English, it was Northern, it was Scouse, it was very British.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:12

Working class.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:12

Working class. Maybe that doesn't translate so well to people who don't well I mean okay, we're we're biased. We grew up in the area, we know Merseyside, Liverpool, the Northwest, we know the characters of Shirley and Joe because we see them. We've grown up with them, maybe people's aunties, uncles, people's grandparents, whatever, because they're northern or they're scouse. Yeah, we don't know in our certainly in our growing up years, we don't know Archie and Wendy.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:39

But what but what does amaze me with how Americans get our humour? So you like say Shirley Valentine's Day, and I I do think it's because it is a working class film, you know, it's for where can we just say that I'm sure there's lots of Americans who do like Shirley Valentine and let's not be able to do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:54

Possibly I'm talking about Roger Ebert particularly, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:58

But then other films that I would class as a working class type film and Megahitz like the full Monty, and and it's kind of like you know, Shirley Valentine and the Full Monty, or obviously different subject, but a similar vibe.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:15

And it's her story.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:16

It could be.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:17

You literally said in our Shirley Valentine episode, I wanted to hear more from Joe, and I nearly threw my drink over you. It is not Joe's film, it is Shirley's film.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:25

But that could be the issue with Roger Ebert, because it's a woman's story, and it's just he's switched off by He loved this, he loved it, and something tickled him with this more than other stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:37

I just find it I just think I know he obviously he's no longer with us, but I find his um reviews a bellwether of everything because he kind of we can find one for every film we've ever talked about. Yeah, and it's interesting to see his take.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:47

I'd be quite interested to see if he when when did he pass away? Oh what a few years ago now. Um would you have watched the full Monty now? I need to see. Well do you know what?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:57

You've you can Google, you can do a little bit of research yourself. Next week it's your turn to choose the film. And you've basically already given away what it is. So John. I haven't.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:14

I said it's a film from the 80s.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:16

I just thought it in my head then. Okay, go on, tell me what it is.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:19

Yeah, if you're ready for it, it's the karate kid.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:22

Woohoo! What do you think? Um I've seen it. Well, I I'd never seen it until about three months ago, and then it and my partner was watching it one night in a moment of nostalgia, and I wasn't interested because I'd never felt the need to watch it, and I was on my laptop. So I've seen bits. He loved it. I've seen bits while I was doing other things, so it'll be it will be interesting to give it some attention. And if people want more, where can they find you?

SPEAKER_01 1:19:46

I'm at Toffe Zar Rose on YouTube and Phil Timon on TikTok.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:51

And I'm at NikkiBond.com, or you can look for the Lisa McCaulay stories online.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:56

Thanks for listening until next time. Bye bye. See ya, bye.