blank check with women and David. Blank check, the most explosive podcast ever made. Wait, that's what you did? Okay, so here's the thing.
Is that the tagline or something? I was digging through all the trailers and the posters last night, and there was one I was trying to find that was I can't quite locate, but all of the trailers kept using these taglines that are like the most explosive, comedy, spectacular and a kick. I just know a comedy, spectacular. This is the thing.
That's the tagline I know from the big post. One of the advertising materials I saw combined the two, because a lot of the trailers kept on saying the most explosive movie ever made, and the posters keep saying a comedy, spectacular, and one of them combined it, and it speaks of the inherent issues with this movie. Okay, they're selling of it was, this is so funny and so big. I mean, that's the movie at large, but okay.
But then we're just saying that as a statement and being like, don't you want to see a movie that's really loud and expensive and has jokes in it? And you're like, what's it about? And they're like, don't worry about that. The most, it's the most movie.
Yes, what about this one? Sooner's screen will be bombarded by the most explosive barrage of, and it looks like the word shit in Japanese ever filmed. So again, it's just like, right, like most screen filled. Like, there won't be a dull second.
No, and this is one of those classic cases of most equaling best. Yes, exactly. I mean, that's the story of 1941. Yes, it's the most movie ever made.
And we all agree that it's probably the great American film. It took 10 minutes to do this. Yes, it's all. It's all in excess.
It's spectacle. It at least delivers on spectacle. But my question for you is, did you consciously avoid a quote from the movie because you couldn't find a line of dialogue that didn't have an Asian slur? Nick, there was a quote on the IDV page I was close to and then I realized it had an African American slur.
Oh, very good. I think there are very few quotes from this movie. The very distinctive lines that don't have something. I don't think there are, I don't think there are really a lot of distinctive lines, period.
And that's why I was like. I didn't say memorable. I said distinctive. I was just like, what are you even looking for?
I don't really know what the killer line for 1941 is. I was looking for this one statement. But it speaks to how this movie had six similar taglines that were used in alternation, all of which are just trying to get the same point across, which was big and funny, expensive. There's the asteroid monologue, but there's nothing in that that really, I can even remember specifically.
When he's up on the tank and he's trying to calm everyone down during the zoot-suit riot. Well, I can barely understand what he's saying. It's screaming. It's just his weird, fast autistic computer speak, right?
It's like the most extreme version of, I'm Dan Aykroyd, I'm a shroody, I'm a shroody, I'm a shroody, I'm a shroody, I'm a shroody, I'm a shroody, I'm a shroody. Everyone is acting car salesman shit. Yeah, every line has the intensity of Christopher Lloyd and the Adams family, just like everyone's just shouting everything. Here's a fun question I thought about watching from last night.
If you were talking to someone who had seen this, but had no frame of reference for Dan Aykroyd as a person, how would you describe to them who Dan Aykroyd plays in this movie? He is first built, I know it because of alphabetical, but he faces big on the poster. He's one of the people the movie was sold on. He's a huge fucking star at this moment.
Yeah, sure. I don't think you could explain to someone what his character does in this movie in a way that really clarifies who he was amidst the 80 characters. It's already even known his function in the plot. Like, the closest you could say is like there's a 10 minute stretch where he's like in custom is doing weird shit, but you're like, that could describe almost any character in this movie during any kind of voice of reason sort of moments amongst the various people who are going crazy, right?
Yes, but that's also what's going on. It's a terrible challenge, I hate the challenge. Just like it's fascinating that this movie is like, we got Aykroyd and you're like, how are you applying him? They're like, we don't really know.
My first note was not enough slurs. So I, so I, I got you guys are right. Now and now and I'm saying, it's really bad. You gave it one star in Letterbox, but only for that.
You got to commit man. One star per hundred slurs. It's hopped out there. This is Blanchek of Griffin and David, the most explosive comedy podcast ever made on Griffin.
I'm David. You look very worried. This movie really bummed, bummed me out of too strong, but I was just kind of like, I have never seen it in full. Yeah, same.
And I really just had that thought of like, it's going to be like interesting. I think that everyone thinks this. And like, there'll be like kind of, you know, a lot to excavate about. And there is to some extent, like, but it's just, I was just kind of flabbergasted by how boring it was.
Do you mind reciting the thing you texted us yesterday? Well, you're watching it. Yeah. This is a podcast of themography, so a massive success early on their career, such as making jaws and close encounters of the third kind.
And are given a series of blank checks to make whatever crazy passion products they want, such as 1941. Sure. I mean, a perfect example of like two mega successes followed by a no notes disaster. Have you ever had someone who's been so like, like so sure that they were making a disaster?
Because he was like, I'm gonna, they're gonna hate this. They're gonna buy one. That's a good point. It's a bounce that he sees coming while he's making it, I think.
But it's also weird about it is we've maybe covered things that are like bounces that people see coming, but it's bounces where they're like, look, there's some esoteric, uncommercial thing I've always wanted to do. Sure, I'll do this too much. And I have the cash to do it. And I'm leveraging it to get this out of my system.
But this is like him making something ostensibly in the trappings of what should be a popcorn movie and just doing it incorrectly. And knowing he's fucking it up, I watched this, there's an hour and 40 minute documentary on the Blu-ray, which has been carried over from the Laserdisc. This thing has been ported over for like 25 years onto various editions. And it's mostly talking heads of just like Spielberg, Zemeckis, John Millius, Bob Gale.
And he says my operating principle on this movie was anything goes. And he was like, I don't want anyone explaining to me that it's a bad idea. We can do anything we want and it doesn't matter if it doesn't make sense. And I'm like, this feels like a guy who actually wants to fuck up on purpose because he's feeling the burden of being seen as a golden shot.
And it's like running headlong into the wall, being like, what happens if I hit my head against the wall? Right. And he's like, either it works and I'm literally unstoppable or I'm grounded in a way I maybe need at this moment. This is a miniseries on the films of Stephen Spielberg.
It's called Podrastic Cast. Today we are talking about his first bounce in 1941. A World War II movie. In a manner of speaking, yes.
Sadly, because our guest today would be very, very well suited to talk about a World War I movie. Go on. I think it was the Doughboys podcast. Wow.
We're one war off. We were both scratching our heads. You guys like all? Oh, okay.
Which ones that? No, yeah. We are the names of the soldiers, the American soldiers. Right.
And in World War II, we have a call The Action Boys with a Z. Right. We should have had a gay person call. The British soldiers were called Tommy.
Okay. That was like how British soldiers referred to the sort of thing. In World War I, the classic British soldier was called Tommy. What were American Doughboys?
No, it's not in World War II. I don't know. G.I. Joe.
I don't know. Googled. Type away. Nick Liger, am I a Mitchell?
Hi, hey buddy. Thanks for having us. Of course. Can I say one thing to your listenership.
I'm a huge fan of the podcast, but I'm a big fan of the podcast. And this is, you're getting what is like, I don't want to say inarguably, but pre widely considered a single worst film, you'll find very few people who put something lower. It's certainly at the bottom. Right.
It's like, I mean, you know, it's like how whatever George W. Bush is a bottom five president, right? I hope people do rankings of presidents, these historians are always like ranking presidents. Yeah.
Those things really weird. My well was sarcastic. I want to state that because no one laughed. I like George W.
Sure. I like them. I love them. No, what I was going to say is dog face.
They were called the dog faces? Dog face was a nickname for U. Children's especially enlisted infantry men in World War II. Wow.
Yeah. It's even salting to use my wife served to use my my recent favorite word on the podcast. I do feel like this is kind of like, in arguably Spielberg's greatest folly, right? This is like the biggest swing in a miss and the sort of public fallout kind of like humbling moment.
It is a big swing. I mean, that's he's trying stuff. And yes, and my my type of defense of this movie, which I have seen before, I don't know how you ever seen this before. I've never seen this before.
I watched this movie as a child. I saw this when I was in elementary school and along with another acryroid movie, Dragnet. I don't know if you'll remember the Dragnet. Of course.
So you're crying. That was like one of the first times I saw a comedy with someone I thought was funny, where I was like, why is this not funny? Like I was like, I had like a nine year old brain of like not understanding how someone who was funny could be was capable of being unfunny. This is why I'm so happy you guys are on for this episode.
Because I mean, as you said, there's experts on unfunny. Why are these comedians not making me laugh? So weird. I got the Stanley Cooper.
This is a comedy podcast. The Stanley Cooper take is I agree with maybe. The thing that's a great movie with just is not funny at all. Yeah, you should have released it and sold it as a drama.
Which I'm sure you'll have some of this in the dossier, but I was shocked to find that that was originally developed as a drama. But like the thing I picked up on, I watched it twice for this episode and the thing I picked up the theatrical cut both times. Yeah, I just watched the theatrical cut twice. I was realizing this.
I maybe saw the extended cut because I watched it on TV as a kid. Maybe that's the version I saw. It was the one that was largely mainstay. Right.
And then was on home video for a while. Now it's optional. Yeah. Yeah.
So I watch it. But like the thing I picked up on speaking of Kubrick that I didn't pick up on as a kid, not knowing who Slim Pickens was. When Slim Pickens showed up, I was like, oh, he's trying to make, you know, Dr. Strange love.
Like this is an attempt at that sort of that level of, you know, war satire. Which boy, Slim Pickens plays, he's a doe boy. He's a former doe boy. That's right.
He's a former doe boy. He's a true writer. This is true. And he does give Wendy's foreforks in the.
Right. I don't know why Slim Pickens impression is fine. Goofy is fine. No, this is a perfect movie where you're like, why is none of this funny?
And you're watching it and you're like, there isn't like a clear, like, well, this is obviously conceptually doomed, unfunny. But just every moment, there's like a black hole of comedy. I'm just kind of like, I'm in a laugh. Like this is a, you know, a vogvillian, you know, big, silly slap sticky stuff.
Why am I kind of like, is it too good in a way? Like, you're still doing a staging action. And so I'm actually kind of just like watching what happens and it's not quite, you know, goofy enough. I don't know.
Yeah. I have a couple takes, but I, you know, the reason we're recording this closer to the date was we were trying very hard to make this in person record. You guys being on the East Coast. And then it didn't quite work out.
And there was a question of like, you guys are going to be doing a live show here in a couple months. Should we wait and reschedule for something later? And I was like, maybe we just something later as well. But you guys on 1941 really feels right.
And watching it last night, I was like, there was a larger conversation to be had here without getting academic, a dumb version of this conversation. We're watching this movie genuinely makes me step back and go like, what is funny? Yeah, right. That was something fun.
Why is anything funny? Because it's really weird to watch incredibly funny people in circumstances where you're like, I could see this being funny and things like that are not ineptly crafted, you know, and are certainly given all the resources and support they need. And there's like anti laughs without it feeling like anti humor without it feeling like disastrous failed humor. It's just not fucking funny.
Yeah. It's like John Belushi and, you know, in a fighter jet, uh, cracking a coke bottle in half and then gargling with it and then throwing it out the, you know, throwing it to the ground. Like that could be funny. Like that could be a bit of physical comedy.
You're watching this. Okay. All the pieces are here, but you're watching it. It just feels abrasive or like nothing at all.
Like the extended cut, which is two and a half hours long. I had a notes app that was right down every time you audibly make a sound. And I believe I had five full laughs for farts. A lot of farts for their own.
I think I had five like, huh? And like two, like half chuckles? Not bad, honestly. Yeah.
It was a little higher than I was expecting. I will say they basically ended by the one hour mark. Like at some point, the movie just wore me out. I think there were none in the last hour possibly, but the Belushi coke bottle is one that got me.
I will say anytime Belushi is on screen. At least resembles their energy. It is comedy adjacent. You're like, I'm not laughing, but I get this as comedy.
Whereas other scenes, you're like, I don't even know what I'm seeing anymore. But wait, I do want to hear what you. So, okay, Nick, you'd already seen 1941. You had some memory of it.
What did you guys think of 1940? What did you guys think of 1940? Just broadest reaction. Well, I think it's good that what Griffin was saying with the, with the, with the, a dough boys are good guests to have on for this.
I can tell you why I think it doesn't work as a comedy. So you were afraid of me wagging my finger there. I'm getting wild at it. I am getting wild at it.
I'm about to say it's too woke. Yeah. It has, it's the unrelenting cacophony of like a, you know, the water world stunt show at Universal. It's just like kind of like things are just keep happening.
Yeah. And you can take that for 20 minutes, but if you take it for two full hours, it just, it just, you get numb to it. Um, yeah, it's like every single scene has a car exploding or someone get punched in the face or a, people being knocked over by cars, a building collapsing. There's like a, there's like Robert Stack just giving exposition outside the movie theater at a certain point in the background, a Jeep just flips randomly.
And it's just, it's just hard to like, what's happened? By the way, one of the funniest moments for me is him just going and enjoying gumbo. That's like, which is a quiet moment. Yeah.
Uh, the best moment in the movie is when anytime dumbbo is playing and I'm watching dumbbo, locked the fucking dumbbo. God, dumbbo is so good thinking about like, gosh, I show my daughter dumbbo and then being like, dumbbo is really sad. Like it really is upsetting. Like the mom and having all these thoughts about the movie is by the way, you know, now, like being like, moving on from dumbbo and I'm like, I'm still thinking about dumbbo.
My friend Alejandro used to have a stand up bit about the reason why Atlas shrugged is so long as in the middle of the book, the main character reads another book. And he's like, in great expectations, just you read the full great expectations and then on page 500 it goes and she closed the book and said, wow, what a good book. Here's like that with dumbbo where you're like, dumbbo is like famously 50 minutes long. Very short.
Right. Short. Yeah. Watching the extended cut of the movie.
I'm like, you could have just given me dumbbo in full and I would have been happier. Yeah. Look, seems to like, this is what I want to throw to you guys. I'm sort of realizing is I look at my, look at my Spielberg rankings.
Okay. I think the worst five movies he's made are his comedies. So I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, I'm like, you know, I'm just messing with my love. I'm like, that brother's another one.
Yeah. What the hell? I think it's sort of a movie about? Well, this is the thing to talk about.
Because I know the movie what the movie is about. It's about a genuine historical event that they're having fun with and supersizing. What the fuck is this movie about? Like, what am I supposed to walk out thinking?
Exactly. I truly don't really know. There were two really interesting things I found out in this special feature document, right? And like, I think at the beginning of it Spielberg says, like, you know, they liked it in Europe.
And he's like, I go to Europe when I want to feel better about 1941. But he was like, basically, it felt like we made this movie that only like me, Milius and the two Bobs enjoyed. Like, he's sort of like, none of us have any shame. We had such a good time making this.
And it felt like our big fuck you to everything and everyone. And we just had uninhibited fun, right? But the two things they said that stuck out to me, one is they're talking about the development of this project, which as you said, Wiger started out as a drama. And at some point, transformed into a comedy.
And they're talking about how the two Bobs and Meckes and Gail discovered this real incident that they morphed and combined with a couple other things. The idea of their being a Japanese attack on California. And they're talking about like that felt like a great starting point for a movie. And then Bob Gail goes, I mean, in real life, the event happened in 1942.
And I'm like, wait a second. So why off the bat? Why the fuck is this movie called 1941? That's a fair point.
It's a good point. The battle on Los Angeles did take place in 19. That is not the big problem. But it feels emblematic of like, you can't even explain to me why you're doing this.
Why is the title of a movie a different year than when the thing happened? Why are we changing things really nearly? The other thing was he talked about how the Robert Stack character, he originally offered to John Wayne. That was his wildest dream.
This is what I know. Yeah. John Wayne to do the film. Right.
And he had like developed a friendship with John Wayne. They get the script to John Wayne and John Wayne is like, you shouldn't make fun of this. The way Spielberg put it. Sure.
He was like, I'm on the phone with John Wayne. John Wayne pitched me a project he wanted to do. I was like, I actually have a script. What you mind reading it?
He's like, absolutely send it over. And he's like, John Wayne like called me within two hours of the messenger dropping the script off. He clearly had read it immediately. Right.
And was like, right? It was really mad. And was like, how fucking dare you? American soldiers fought and died for this one.
I thought you were an American. I thought you were going to make a movie to honor World War II. This dishonors the memory of what happened. Don't even make this film.
I'll be very disappointed if you wind up making this picture. And the way, Oh, wow. He was going to the end. And then he got to write some racial slurs.
The way Spielberg put it. He was like, John Wayne was like, this script is a slap in the face of the US military. And Spielberg's report was, I don't think it's a slap in the face. I think it's a pie in the face.
I have respect for the US military. I just think it's fun to put pie in faces. Yeah. And I'm like, there's a whole problem right there.
This movie has no fucking point of view. It doesn't really have a point of view. Like, this is offensive because it's not taking the military seriously. And Spielberg's like, I have nothing critical to say about the military.
I just think it's funny when pies go in people's faces. Right. It's going back to, you know, the kind of attempt at making a, you know, Dr. Strange Love.
It's like Dr. Strange Love has a point of view. Like you understand what it's saying about like Cold War hysteria. This one I have no idea what it's trying to convey.
Dr. Strange Love is anti-war. Mashes anti-war. These are movies with like 1941.
I kind of agree with John Wayne. Like, yeah, I'm like. I grew a lot of things. Mostly his Playboy interviews.
Where I'm kind of like, well, and I guess that we can talk about how it turned from a drama to a comic. Because it's like, yeah, that what it's about is like a paranoid on edge nation. Right. After Pearl Harbor kind of like, you know, exploding into suspicion and chaos and all that.
And the movie is like, I guess it's kind of like these dorks. And I'm like, they're not dorks. They're freaking out. And it's causing problems.
Like, it's scary. Something like the Russians are coming. The Russians are coming. Which is an element that feels like a big influence on that.
That to me is the most obvious animal. And that's a movie about paranoia that is funny. It's funny. And it's also like that movie functions more as social satire.
Where it's about like the American public reacting to something rather than like a scathing indictment of the military. And it's like, that's a take to. And this movie is just kind of like everyone's dumb. To me, this movie is like we have lots of money.
Also anyway, Nick, we're gonna say it. Oh, I was just gonna say, and Mitchell, I want to hear what you have to say as well. But like, I was just gonna say that it's 1941 is the movie, right? It's set before like the kind of the outbreak of the full-fledged American involvement in the European and Pacific theaters.
But like for this to work as satire, World War Two would have had to be a big nothing, right? Because when I was like, people don't have to stare at these people getting worked up over this thing that was like this, you know, whatever. That was a false alarm. But it completely, again, yeah, kind of sympathized with John Wayne's perspective.
By the way, how much John Wayne has felt? Like, you know, towards the end of his career, towards the end of his life. Spielberg makes close encounters in Jaws. He hears Spielberg is making a World War Two movie and he wants him.
And he gets the script delivered, reads it immediately. And then like on page five, a lady's trying to fucking airplane. Hey, John. I mean, I think John Wayne, who is a fascinating figure, like had, you know, this whole complex.
Facing political figure. Well, how he did serve, right? And he played all these service men and movies and stuff like that. And he, I think, had a weird chip on his shoulder about like, you know, being a phony actor instead of a real hero.
Which was like, it was a, he had like imposter syndrome. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. And the whole thing with John Wayne is I grew up just thinking that he was this like super square, right? Like, that was what I knew about him.
Then you start watching John Wayne movies and you're like, this guy really pops. This guy fucking rocks. This guy fucking rocks. This guy needs this guy up.
He's so good. He's one of the definitive. I don't know if he's a good actor, but he's an unbelievable movie. I just want to watch this guy like poor beers like this.
But, you know, yeah, like the zoot suit riots, which are part of this movie. And by the way, the extended cut, I was like trying to look up what the differences are. It feels like it's 90% that plot line put back in. That's like a main threat of the version I've watched.
That's like a really interesting, charge, scary part of history where like white soldiers started beating up black people and Mexicans and stuff in like the middle of the war. And like patriotism is curdling again, not in Spielberg's like, well, it's like a big set piece where like a bunch of punching happens. Like this is great. When I say that his take on the movie is everyone is dumb.
I don't mean that appointed way where he's like trying to comment on like human fallibility or whatever. It's just like going against the adage, like a comedy adage of like play to the top of your intelligence. Like it's very hard to make audiences find dumb people funny, especially at like plate at length. And this is a movie where everyone is just low intelligence in a way that doesn't feel like it's commentary on anything.
That was exactly like another reason why the movie isn't funny. It's just a comedy of misunderstandings where you're like, oh, they're shooting John Belushi shoots Treat Williams's plan. And then the Japanese submarine is out at sea lost for most of the movie. And I get that it's not a real threat in that they're just paranoid, but you're just like, the comedies of misunderstanding is bad.
It's boring. There's no stakes. It's boring. It's boring.
It's exactly as moving. Because you get it right away what the joke is and then there's not really. Yeah, there's a lot. You're so much smarter than the characters.
You're point like page five minute five or whatever. You're like, okay, Nancy Allen really wants to fuck airplanes. Where's this going? It goes just there across 10 more scenes.
She just keeps wanting to fuck airplanes. I was excited when Slim Pickens found the in the cracker Jack box when they actually when they found when the Japanese found the companies. I was like, thank God, they're going to go to Hollywood now and then Slim Pickens swallows and I was like, fuck, this sucks. Like I want to don't I want something to happen here.
That's why actually I liked I liked the zoot suit stuff just because I at that point I was like, this is fun to watch. Yeah, he's a good director. Like that's what I'm not mad about it in sort of like I can't believe he didn't remark on those series. I'm just again, I'm kind of like, well, there is something to that, but the movie is not interested in whatever there is to that.
It's not saying anything. Yeah, and it's depiction. I mean, it obviously completely sucks out, you know, removes the racial element from the historical thing. But like it's it also is like it's depicting it, but not not saying anything.
But this goes back to what I think I should say earlier, like my type of defense of this movie is you watch that sequence and you watch it begins in the dance hole and that that whole big dance contest sequence that turns into a fight. It's like, that's pretty dazzling to watch. Yeah. It's an impressive bit of staging and contrast it with another one.
1941 versus red one, like two action companies that absolutely do not work. Red one is just like a like a money mad to compare. I actually do now. I think I like the movie way more.
Yeah, because red one is like a muddy ugly mess. There's nothing to look at in that $250 million CG, you know, goop fest that's at all like appealing visually and this movie at least has stuff where it's like, oh, okay, he's doing stuff. I got to pitch. Yeah.
1940 red one. Yeah. We pitched that to the rock. It's a period piece with with Calum drift.
That's great. To your John Wayne point, like a thing I kept thinking about in that whole anecdote, it made you killed it. Bezos is fucking blowing your phone up right now. John Wayne, similarly in this period of time, a couple of years earlier, was Mel Brooks's first choice for the Waco Kid and Blazing Saddles.
Wow. John Wayne died the year this movie came out. He was also like very end of his life. He was suffering cancer from cancer.
Yeah. Yeah. Um, send some blazing title script. John Wayne reads it calls Mel Brooks back immediately is like, this is the funniest thing I've ever read.
I could never do this movie. Right. Okay. So he had good taste on my.
I was like, I love this. I love this. So many. And I get to say all of them.
They're like, no, those are the other characters. You're supposed to be a good guy. To be clear, I'm a slandering John Wayne. When I say that.
That is a movie that is very pointedly commenting on American racism. Yes, sure. Right. And he's a great, racist old man.
Right. And was basically like, this script is really funny. I think it'll be a great movie. His famous line was, I won't do it, but I'll be first in line to see it.
Sure. And he just was like, I think my fans will murder me. And I don't think it will help your movie. I think it will like, lend too much.
I would have fucked up the movie. I think he's too big a deal for that movie. He was 100%. Right.
But like he read that script and was like, I get it. I get what you're doing here, which makes like the framework of his like absolute dead on precision. This is the problem with 1941 on paper. All the more like he wasn't just reacting to something being countercultural.
You know, he wasn't just being conservative. He was like, this sucks. Do you know what John Wayne's tombstone says? Larry.
His tombstone says, he's for a man. Spanish for ugly, strong and dignified. He requested that be on his tombstone. Anyway, David, yes intentional air about you today.
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1941, so in 1973, Stephen Spielberg made a movie called The Sugar Land Express. He had a preview screening for it at USC Sculm School. And in attendance was Robert Zemeckis. Bob Ezey, who is attending film school and tracks down Spielberg and says, please watch my 15-minute short film, A Field of Honor, about a combat veteran who's gone crazy.
And he'd written it with his friend Bob Gale. It won this special jury prize at the Student Academy Awards, and Spielberg was blown away by it. And we covered Zemeckis years ago. That short is notably like a pitch black, hyper-political sort of like counter-cultural satire.
Right. It is the kind of tone that this movie is going for. That's what first gets Zemeckis on Spielberg's radar. And those guys graduate as Meckis and Gale.
The two Bobs, as you call them, they write some TV. They work on a movie called Tank About Oil Protesters. This is where this sort of who are going to roll up a building with a Sherman Tank. Right.
They have Spielberg's ear. His star just keeps on rising. He's kind of taking him under his wing as protege. He's also introduced them to John Millius.
Yes, that's how they meet John Millius. Spielberg won so we go ski-shooting with John Millius, I believe? I guess so. They certainly go out hunting or whatever.
Sure. And he introduces them and they're sort of like, how do we write a script that one of these guys will buy? And Millius had some sort of deal set up where he was guaranteed two pictures of director and three pictures as a producer. And this is coming off the success of Patton, where there was a big let's valorize the military kind of like trend in Hollywood.
So the tank thing I think starts as them being like, how do we write something that would appeal to Millius and also would likely get greenlit? They're just looking to get something off the ground. Yes, they were a script called the Night theme, Japanese attacked. Initially it had a slur in the title.
Then it was called the Rising Sun. And they were like, yeah, Wesley Snipes is going to want to make a Rising Sun. So we'll hold off on that. So it gets called 1941.
This outrageous concept about hysteria on the home front after Pearl Harbor. It is based on three events, none of which happened at the same time. The Japanese sub-being cited off the coast of Santa Barbara in February 42. That happened.
That led to the Battle of Los Angeles where people started shooting in the sky at probably nothing because they thought they were being invaded. In the 1943, the sort of suit rides between sailors and suit suitors who were being seen as unpatriotic for not signing up. They were like anti-authority. But they're pulling all these pieces of the whole NED-BADY plot line of this guy getting a fucking aircraft gun in his backyard.
It did happen, but not in California in a different year. But they were just sort of plucking. I'm forgetting what the take on tank was, but it was some other pitch. And then they bring it to Millius.
He's like, egh. But what else you guys think in terms of war? They start talking about the Battle of California. Then it morphs into like try writing something like that.
They think to write it as a drama. And then at some point it shifts into comedy. Well, Spielberg is looking to make movies. So Spielberg made these movies, Jaws and Close Encounters.
You guys like those movies? Yeah, yeah. I like those movies. You're good.
By the way, I just want to say that I might just get Faeo on my grave, just ugly. I forgot the strong and dignified. I've been holding that in for a long time. I want to try that off.
Jaws is probably my top 10 films of all time. You're a big Jaws guy. I love Jaws. I love Jaws.
I love Close Encounters. Actually, maybe I have Close Encounters ranked above Jaws and my personal list, but they're both incredible movies. And then Jurassic Park to me is the king. I mean, like that's the perfect age.
I saw that movie. I just, yeah. But Jaws is like going down to Cape Potter and I was younger and Jaws being on in the summer. It's like the idea of movies even just came from Jaws.
And they're the best. It's one of the best of all time. And 1941 is a movie. Yeah.
Yeah. So Spielberg's thinking of how do I follow those two movies? He circled a pirate movie that was being written by Jeff Fiskin. He wanted to be like an old fashioned sort of Errol Flynn movie.
He exits that movie because pirate movies are just not hot. He's briefly touched something called the Bingo Long Traveling All Stars and Motor Kings. That was me. Was it not?
Yeah. John Batham. Okay. He also says Matthew Roberts.
He's like a Troy McClure movie. He really does. The Cacabulous Spantraption. Whatever.
It is a Robins though, right? Matthew Robbins wrote it with Hal Barr with the Sugar and Masks Express guys. He also circled Magic, the Haunted Puppet movie with Anthony Hopkins that Richard Attenborough ends up making. He was going to make it with De Niro.
Imagine how that puppet was. Yeah. I know. But then he was like, Attenborough did a great job with it.
Did a better job than me. I don't know. Instead, he's sort of thinking like, what if I do a big swerve, right? Yeah.
How about a comedy? Milius, I think, was sort of initially going to direct this movie. Yes. So John Milius is obviously a very chill and normal guy who was kind of older.
I feel like the rest, maybe a little older than the Spielberg department was sort of friends with all of them. There was a chain of sort of copola mentored Milius. Right. And Milius kind of talk looks now.
Right. And copola kind of stamped him and verified him. And then he kind of took Spielberg and Lucas under his wing at the Palma. There was this chain in the way that Milius.
But then they pass him. Yes. They go like, I mean, I've really used to speak best known movie as Conan, the Barbarian, if you've heard of him. But all those guys talk about Milius is like the greatest writer amongst all of them.
Why do you took a banana out of his pocket? I thought he was happy to see us. And in fact, there was a banana in his pocket and he's eating a banana. We were enjoying your guys combo.
You guys were doing a better job than we could ever do talking about this movie. And we looked at each other and we nodded and we started. We decided while we were out. John Milius tangent.
We're like, we're going to deploy Chekhov snacks. So many of his kind bar and I grabbed my banana and we're having a great time. We're having a great time. And Jeremy's sitting on the couch by the way.
We should credit Jamie in the title of the episode as the third guest. He is a dog for people who aren't regular doughboys listeners. I'm our producer. So what I was going to say is Milius has this deal at the time.
Right. Set up at MGM. So he brings the script to MGM. The first note is you got to change that fucking title.
That's when they change the title and the head of MGM at the time reads it and is like, I don't get this absolutely not. Passes on it. Then a year passes and Spielberg's like, I don't know what to do next. Which I get.
I understand how if you make Jaws when you're in your twenties and is the biggest movie in history. Then you follow it up by making this incredibly personal movie that is going over budget and over schedule and everyone thinks it's going to be your folly. And then that succeeds wildly. You're like, what the fuck do I do now?
And you're reading a script like magic that is good on paper. But you're like, is this too small? Like how do I outdo myself? What feels like it's living up to the expectation I've set for myself?
Like it is safer to do the thing that on paper seems more dangerous in a certain way. He's drawn to two things. He likes the Ferris wheel sequence. Spielberg brain immediately is sort of like, I'm not be fun to do.