All right, here we go. Quiet. Roll up. Hello, and welcome to the Big Picture Podcast, where we take a look at the latest movie news, the films of today and yesterday, and we slaughter them for your enjoyment.
Seated across the microphone from me, making a noise that is absolutely despicable, is film buff online editor in chief, Mr. Richard Drees. And seated across the microphone from me, a film buff online contributing editor and person who's kind of giving away one of the films we're going to be talking about today. Natasha Bugutki, Wednesday, are you full of woe today?
Always. It makes me pleased with life. Oh, man. Okay.
Yes. We are gonna talk about the new Netflix series Wednesday, which just dropped, which is, I think, fitting our hat here a little bit. Fantastic. We're also gonna be talking about miracle on 34th street, so prepare for an insane shifting of gears into a segue that we've ever done.
Hey, you said we couldn't segue last week during our episode, and I found a most beautiful segue. Maybe we'll find something wonderful here. I would love to. But before that, though, I did kind of want to just bring up the passing of Irene Carrol, which happened two days ago.
As of this recording on the 25th, she's probably best known for her early 80s work appearing in movie fame and singing the title track there. The great Alan Parker. Yeah, Alan Parker film. And then just a couple of years later, she co wrote and sang the theme to Flash Dance what a Feeling, which was ubiquitous on the radio for a good while.
Oh, yes, it was for a while. I still hear it regularly. It's a poppy song. It's an Oscar winner.
Yeah, I know. It's amazing because I think she might be the only person who won an Oscar for writing or co writing the song and a Grammy for Best Female Vocal Performance that year. I can't think of anybody off the top of my head who might have that double whammy. And if there is, she might be the first.
She's also the. She's only the second black woman to have won an Academy award after Hattie McDaniel from Gone with the Wind in 1939. So it took 40 years, basically, for another black woman performer to win an Academy Award, which I think they're still struggling to get that kind of representation in the Oscars even now, even though we have made great strides. But when you look back at that, and now we're 40 years away from when she won it.
Yeah, it's. It does kind of put all of that into perspective. And she becomes that focal point in between 1940, when Hattie McDaniel won, and what's kind of happening now in the last couple of years. Yeah, and unfortunately, I don't think she really had as strong a career for the rest of her time in film.
She had a couple more hits in the song, in the songs on the radio with her music. She was in things like DC Cabinet, which is a comedy with Mr. T that has its fans. It's not a great comedy, but, you know, among.
Among people my age, you know, if. If you watch a lot of stuff that you rented in, like, junior high school from the video store or you watch a lot of hbo. DC Cab was one of those films that was in constant rotation. I'd never even heard of it.
Yeah, she was also in, like, Music City Heat. Nope. And Sister. Sister.
Not the TV show, but it was actually. There was an actual movie not based on the TV show. I saw a TV show. But, yeah, you know, she was kind of just nice knowing that she was out there, you know, living a life that was probably pretty good.
And, you know, like I said, a touchstone in the history of the Oscars, in the history of film, and in the history of black in the movie industry, you know, and she's now gone. But we will remember. Thank you for everything you gave us. Yes.
I'm trying to think, was there anything else, really, that jumped out at you in the news? Only the biggest regeneration in film business in a long time. Oh, yeah, that's right. How'd you forget about that?
Oh, my gosh. I'm so flabbergasted by it. A week, almost a week later, we are, of course, talking about Bob Chapek getting the boot from Disney and the Disney board bringing back Bob Iger. The man, the myth of legend.
He literally got the Doctor who treatment. Russell T. Davies and David Tennant are back. So that should just show you how much in the shooter.
Disney might need some help. And Iger wasn't there, what, 18 months? It was amazing. And we don't talk about, like, a lot of the geeky business side stuff, but Matt Chapek was a lifelong Disney guy.
Rose to the head of parks, you know, so he ran all the theme parks. And then when Bob Iger was getting ready to leave, they announced Chapek as his successor. I kind of was like, wait a minute. I know some people who are, like, Disney park fans.
They're fans who just, like, we love the Disney parks and they go multiple times a year. Oh, I know some of those, too. And So I reached out to one of them who I went to college with. She actually lives down in Georgia, so it's not too hard for her to get to Orlando.
And she was actually in town for something. We were having dinner and I asked her. I was like, so what can you tell me? What do the park fans think of Bob Chapek's stewardship of the theme parks?
And she didn't get into a lot of details, but she was not a fan, we'll say that. Really? Yeah. And it kind of matched what a little bit of buzz I'd been hearing, like, on social medias and stuff like that.
And when he came in, like, right away, he screwed things up with Scarlett Johansson in Black Widow. He was pushing to get all the Pixar stuff, you know, as just directs to Disney, which pissed off all of Pixar, basically. And, you know, those were like two of his first big mistakes out of the box. And the Scarlett Johansson thing is just because he had no relationships with talent.
And the Pixar thing, same reason. No relationships with talent. And he can strive to make relationships with hell. And then, of course, on the political side, when Governor DeSantis in Florida started the don't say gay thing, usually Disney has a lot of gay employees, LGBTQ employees at the parks, in, you know, in studios everywhere.
He didn't speak up and. And the employees felt betrayed, left out in the cold. So Disney stock has been sliding down. I know I jumped in a little bit to buy some because I knew it pop back up.
So I was catching that low wave right now. Yeah. And it did pop like the Monday after that was announced. That's only been like a week, week and a half.
Yes. It happened like two days after we recorded our last episode, or dropped last episode, I think. And I'm curious to see how the st. No, I just want to see how it's changed since before that too, to now.
I think it has not changed. Well, then again, he hasn't had time to do anything really yet. I think we're going to start seeing changes announced probably. There's probably going to be like some behind the scenes shuffling.
We're going to start seeing changes being announced probably in the new year. Now Iger is back for two years. They made it very clear that it's a temporary position. Yeah.
He's going to write the ship from where it was listing. He's going to train. Yes, yes. Which I think is smart.
Very smart. Yeah. One of the other things Chapak did was he created like this group of executives. And you're at Disney and you make something, you make, you know, a movie.
And this group of executives are the ones who decide, well, we'll put it in theaters. Yeah, we're throw it on Disney. It's never clear from the outset. And even people like Kevin Feige at Marvel was subservient to this thing.
And Kevin Feige is one of the most powerful men in Hollywood. Yes. I mean, how many billions with a B has he generated for Disney, not just from the films, but from merchandising for the films, from theme park attractions for the films based on the films? I'm curious to work those numbers.
I would say it's probably at least 10 to 15 billion. Yeah. I would say. Yeah.
And I'm sure the numbers are out there on, like, Hollywood Reporter or something like that. They probably mentioned that somewhere along the way. So. Yeah.
So even to make somebody, like, kind of Feige subservient to this group who feels. And we're just gonna throw it on Disney plus, which happened with okay. Soul, I think, was an exception because we were early in the pandemic. But there were some other things and, you know, other things about Disney Animation Studio, too.
Like in Kanto, Kanto went for, like, it had a very small theatrical run. It did. But we were also a little post pandemic at that time. And honest.
Yeah, Bob, whatever his name was, was not. The jpeg was not the best. We're already forgetting him. Good.
And he didn't run things very well. But I will say this. He came in at a very turbulent time in the film industry. One of the most turbulent it may have ever had, which was post pandemic.
Through the pandemic. Post pandemic. It's. It's not been easy for anyone.
And I think there's. I think all the studios are still trying to find their footing, find how the audience is reacting to films in the cinema now and kind of try to find new ways to market their. Their films to a wider crowd. Some have streaming services.
Some. Most do not. I saw a thing the other day where it said, you know, some of the best movies of the year. Van Shees of Insurance Tariff, she said, so on and so forth.
Are not finding crowds at the cinema. No. When I saw. She said last week, opening night.
Opening night. I was literally opening night, Friday night, seven o' clock show. I was literally the only person in the theater. And it was in one of the bigger rooms, too, at the.
At the Cineplex I went to. So that was like. That Was a double ouch. Because I was like, oh, yeah, Tar Tar actually had a decent amount of people when I went to it, which was when I say decent for a Tuesday night, which is probably the reason why people were at it, because it's $5 Tuesday, there was about 10 to 12 people, which is.
It's not the best crowd I've ever seen in an indie film because I've sat through King Speech and Lincoln and a few others, and there wasn't a seat left. You and I and Darren went to see blackkklansman. Oh, yeah. We had to sit front row of the fucking pit.
That was all that was left. We got the last two seats. Okay, well, first of all, I will grant you your point about Pop Shake back. He did come in at one of the worst, if not the worst time in film history, and every studio was in that same boat.
And you saw Warner Bros. Make that ridiculous mistake of we're just gonna throw our entire 2021 slate onto HBO Max. And then 2022 comes along, they start cutting things. And that was because of a shake in ownership.
But half the directors from the 2021 films were like, how come I'm finding out about this? When I opened up the Hollywood Reporter website this morning. Yes. That is why I bought you the Writer's Tears whiskey.
I'm like, you're gonna need this entire bottle to get through the Warner Brothers shakeup. Yeah, just about. It was. It was crazy.
It was a crazy time, and a lot of studios made mistakes, but I think Bob JP Making more than his fair share. And he. You know, he was pushing streaming to the point where he was abandoning theatrical almost altogether. Think about how many Disney films came out last year.
This past year, three Marvel films. Lightyear and oh, and Strange World, which opened up this weekend to really low box office and virtually no advertising for it from the last month. I know I saw one trailer for it earlier on when it was announced, and that was it. Everything else went straight to streaming.
You had Turning Red. You had. Oh, God. What else came out this year?
Honestly, Turning Red is probably one of my leads for best of the year for animation. Oh, wow. Yeah. That video.
I mean, there were a bunch of videos that's. Well, that's not Disney. Yeah, I know. We did have a Pinocchio film hit Disney plus.
Ooh. It was not good. I didn't watch it. Okay.
I mean, maybe if you want, but it's nothing. I would. If you really have a precious two hours and you have. Want something to watch, that's not what I will go to be.
Like, I get two hours then maybe. No, no, My, my hours are kind of precious. So I'm very picky at this point. It's weird because we're seeing, you know, streamers are still investing so much money in content, and I hate kind of using that word content because it sounds very clinical.
But intelligent shows in, in films and they, I don't think any of them have really started to turn that corner, started showing profit yet, but they're continuing to build their libraries and I think we're, I'm hoping we're gonna see a shift this week. Glass Onion, the Knives out sequel from Rian Johnson is in theaters for one week from Netflix and then in a month goes straight to straight, then disappears and goes. But I'm, you know, I'm seeing anecdotally people talking about, yeah, I went to see Glass Onion. Theater was packed.
It's only in 600 screens and it's gonna be like the number three box office movie this weekend. And I'm thinking, okay, if Netflix had doubled that, put it on 1200 screens, given a decent solid wide release, maybe leave it in theaters for a couple of weeks, they would have made a lot more money. And I don't think what, you know, what they could have theoretically made was going to be offset or be less than the amount of money that they think they're going to get out of this film. Driving subscribers or keeping subscribers around on the streaming service for what it debuts on December 23rd.
Yes, they could be making more money, but I understand exactly what they're doing. They give you a taste, they let the word of mouth spread of how good it is. And then come Christmas, you have families sitting around. Maybe some of them have Netflix, maybe some of them don't, but it'll become a group thing, people watching it together during the holiday season.
And I did hear a few months ago Netflix was thinking of raising the price a little bit again, they're doing the ad tier. Yeah, HBO's already started doing an ad tier. Yeah. Because I was over at my girlfriend Juicy's a few weeks ago and she was watching Doctor who in the middle of it, and ad started.
I went, what the hell? She goes, oh, you don't have ads? I'm like, I didn't know they had ads. She goes, I paid for the lower mark.
I'm like, okay, well, we hopped in on it when it first, when eachbo first started up. So, like, we only had the one tier. And that's. We're actually in the highest tier.
Yeah. I mean, and, you know, for some people, you know, if they only have, you know, a limited budget for entertainment, then it works. Yeah, it works. And I can see that.
And, you know, and I see where also, you know, like, Netflix is kind of trying to cut down on password sharing, and I wouldn't be surprised if we started seeing some of that from some of the other streamers. Oh, here's. Well, here's an issue that I. I have a problem with there when it comes to password sharing.
A lot of times when you have password sharing, it's more of a case of three or four people in the same household. In the same household. So, like, for example, my. My husband and I have one that we share with, you know, our two stepsons.
One half of the time, he's. He's at his mother's two weeks out of the month. Yeah. The other one is in his first year of college on the other side of the state.
Yes. But it's still part of our. It's not. Yeah.
It's not extended family. It's very strong immediate family. So is Netflix telling me that if I am using my Netflix on my phone, I can't use my husband's password for our television? Are you?
Like, I don't understand how that. I'm not sure how that works either. I don't know how they differentiate or how they figure out who is what. It's very confusing to me.
And I mean, the rollout on that is kind of weird. And I guess everybody's just kind of like, well, we'll see what happens if we get it, we'll figure it out then. Which is not a great way to lead your customers. No.
Because if they start, you know, shutting down, you know, not being able to log into your Netflix, and you're like, hey, honey, Netflix is giving me some trouble. I'll just change the password and you try it again. It doesn't work. And you're like, what's going on here?
Next thing you know, Netflix is going to have a lot of people just deciding, you know what? I'm just going to cut my service completely. Yeah. It comes down to them calculating more people are going to.
I mean, they have, like the. I think they're talking. Honestly, I can't remember if they actually implemented this or not. They're talking about how if you were sharing, say, with your son in college, your steps on college, he could get a kind of like a associated subscription to yours, but he'd have to pay, like $5 a month.
Or something like that. I can't remember. We were talking about that. At some point.
The smartest thing I think to do would be create like, like Spotify. Does they do a family plan. So for like Spotify, you could have like three or four people on an account and it's 15 bucks a month. And that's like, that's kind of what I'd pay for, you know, hbo.
So imagine, okay, we're gonna do a family plan for Netflix and allow you four people and I don't even know the prices is on Netflix anymore because that's what I don't cover in the house. And instead of paying 12 bucks, you're paying 16. Yeah, I'm trying to remember what I paid, but it obviously automatically deducted. And I also, I still have a DVD plan.
Yeah. Wait, what? There are still films? They're not.
Yes, my friend Jason Sherry's office comedy Sentence Grant before the office film called Cubes that is available on Netflix. And, and I walk through the end of it. No, there's a lot of films that aren't available on any streaming service but are still available on physical media. It's kind of like that shrinking of libraries.
When was the last time you used your, your DVD plan through Netflix? I have a Netflix disc right up there on top of the To Watch file. When did you get it? Okay, actually I got a couple weeks ago.
It's the Nic Cage movie, Knowing which. Why it's a horrible movie. A friend of mine who used to write for the site many years ago, Mike, who subsequently passed away, I was rereading some of his old stuff a little while back and he, he really liked the movie. He made a convincing argument for me to check it out because I'd never seen it.
And so I kind of just threw it onto my Netflix list and it was an excellent shout out. But, you know, so, so I was like, ok. And then he's making me feel better. I didn't mean to do that.
But you know, it kind of arrived just as I needed to start watching and doing all of my 2022 catch up for Critics Circle voting in a couple of weeks. Actually, I think our first round of nominations is on the second. So this coming week, actually, I need to have most of my stuff watched. And it's been, it's been a vicious, vicious couple of weeks, trying to catch up with a lot of stuff, a lot of great stuff.
And. But I did find time though, because we started watching this on Thanksgiving Day. And then after you left, I was at all Intents of sitting down and watching, like, two movies and then going to bed. And Netflix hooked us in with it.
Yeah. I just kept watching all the way through to the end of their new series, Wednesday, which is an Addams Family kind of spin off featuring daughter Wednesday Addams on her way to a private school of mystery and spooky and ookiness. Done by Tim Burton. Yep.
As the. He's the executive producer on that. He directed like, four of the eight episodes. Yeah.
And can we talk about how it has such Ms. Peregrine vibes? I was gonna say Ms. Peregrine.
There's. I would say a little bit of Harry Potter in there. There's a little bit of the X Men in there. And the fact that all the kids at the school are all, like, have supernatural abilities.
I didn't even think about X Men, but you're right. Kind of mutants as the Outcast versus the Normies. Exactly. That's exactly the vibe I was getting from that.
Yeah, good point. But. But overall, I found it absolutely delightful. It was a lot of fun.
And just going to come out and say, Jenna Ortega is going to be a star. She is incredible. I know she's been making waves for. For quite a while, particularly in, like, the horror area.
She was in Scream and X just this year. But this is going to. This. Her performance is.
Wednesday goes beyond the horror genre. This is going to hit. Kids can hit teenagers, you know, parents who kind of grew up with, like, the 90s version of Adam's family. The.
The older part of our generation who grew up with the original, I think can somehow appreciate. On weekday afternoon reruns. Yes. Over the summer on our 13 channels of cable.
Yeah. It definitely even, like, reaches back to them, especially in the scene. And you said it's been all over TikTok. I've seen it a little bit on Twitter.
The dance. Yes. Where the Boomuck by the Cramps, which is epic. And Wednesday does this really herky jerky kind of dance.
And some of that stuff relates all the way back to what Lisa Loring was doing as the actress who played Wednesday in the TV series. I saw that actually Jenna Ortega choreographed that dance herself. And she did it by watching a lot of videos of goth kids from the 80s dancing. Particularly there's a move that she pulled from Susie sue and she was just like.
It was something I was kind of passionate about trying to do on my own. And it's. It's amazing. Delightfully bonkers.
It's just her eyes. I swear I tried to count the amount of time she actually blinks through this freaking show. Not many. I didn't catch, really any.
It's. It's terrifying. Her eyes practically follow you. I counted more smiles than blinks, and there's a lot of smiles either.
And honestly. But does you always somehow feel like you know exactly what she's thinking? Even when she is more emotional? Her face is pretty much stone cold, but you can see something behind her eyes every single time.
It's an incredibly subtle performance. And. And she delivers, like, you know, like, the zinger Wednesday, you know, zinger lines. And we talked about this, where she delivers them in such a way where, you know, you don't know if she's serious or she's being sarcastic.
And it's a fine razor's edge between those two, and it's delightful. And because it throws everybody around her off balance. Yes. And she.
Every single one is perfectly written. Every single one is perfectly delivered. And it's just great moment after great moment in the show. I know.
And the supporting cast. Catherine Zeta Jones as Morticia Adams. Louise Guzman as Gomez Gomez. Fred Armisen as Uncle Fester.
Fred Armist. I don't think I've seen him throw himself into a role and just. I'm gonna be as weird as possible and embrace how gonzo this thing is. I heard he really wanted this role, and he's so good in it.
He's only in it for one episode, but, man, I want more of him. As great as Jenna Ortega is in this whole thing, he almost steals that episode from her. Yeah. I mean, Jenna Ortega is going up against, like, Gwendolyn Christie, who's amazing.
She's fantastic. Yeah. And she's going up against a lot of actors and really just, like, holding her own there. And did you notice how they cast, like, everyone who is, like, super freaking tall to make her seem, like, okay, Gwendolyn Christie is, what, six, four?
Something like that. Yeah. And then she's wearing heels for most of the damn show. And then you have Jenna Ortega in her little loafer, his and her pigtails standing next, just completely.
The height dynamic is very interesting because Wednesday always seems more in control of every scene and every moment than the adults do. Yeah, that's. That's another thing. You know, she just has this presence in every.
Every. Every moment. That is what you need for this character, because everything is basically even. We're not seeing stuff, you know, where she is.
Everything is basically her viewpoint, and it's contempt of the entire world. And existence is a burden. And at the exact same Time you feel vindicated. The amount of times I've sat around and like, I just hate people.
That's my inner Wednesday going. The first three emojis that I think of you that come to mind are rope, shovel, hole. It's just. Yeah, yeah, we've all had those moments.
And I want to also give out some props to Emma Myers, though, as her roommate Enid, who is the anti Wednesday. That works so well together. If you were to draw a diametric opposite of Wednesday, it's this, it's this brightly dressed, perky, multicolored haired, outgoing werewolf. Yes.
Jenna actually said that she. That Emma's character, Enid, is the sunshine to Wednesday's dark cloud. That's. That's perfect.
That's absolutely perfect. And her roommate and best friend. Yeah. Now, for everything I did love about this show, the big overall arcing mystery through the eight hours of the series, I feel I kind of had it at least partially pegged by episode four.
I did too. Okay. Because by the time the big reveal happened, I was just like, well, duh. But then on top of it, it all came down to who they cast in that role.
Yeah, possibly. And I hope that's not a spoiler. Well, when you just in general is a big rule of thumb. If you see a big name kind of sitting there playing a minor character, like a supporting character during a mystery, like they're gonna have a bigger role towards the end.
Exactly. It's the mur. She wrote rules. Yeah.
Like you kind of, you can kind of guess who the baddie is by, who hasn't been used, who's a big name. You can't just toss them off to the side. You know, at some point they're going to become involved in the finale in a bigger way. Yeah.
And usually it's at the antagonist, but there is, there are some other twists and turns in there. A few red herrings. I was like. That had me second guessing what I thought.
So even if you do have to think, you have to figure out, you know, just watch the whole thing. It's still a fun ride. I will. I will admit.
And you don't get Uncle Fester until episode seven, so you tag in there for that. If you watched all the way through seven, you might as well watch last episode. But the, the final, that final major reveal is actually a two parter, and I only guessed half of it. Same here.
So that's, that's what really kind of threw me for a loop. That's. That's the bit I was not expecting. Yeah.
But on the other hand, though, we are celebrating this year, and I think this month, an anniversary. Yes, we are. Another girl. Another little girl that kind of could remind me as a proto Wednesday Addams.
Yes. Yes. Actually, we're talking about Nelly Wood's character in, of course, the classic Miracle on 31st street, which is what, 75? I never really made that connection.
The second you started to say that, I was like, oh, yeah, she's really practical. She doesn't dry. She's dry. She's not prone to flights of imagination or fantasy or.
Yeah, she has bits of Wednesday Addams in her. Yikes. I think if Santa Claus had come and showed up, she may have turned into a Wednesday. That's true.
Thank you, Santa. Yes. But anyways, classic film and available on Disney plus right now. Yeah, after we crap on Disney plus and Netflix.
We're doing two of their things. That was not the plan. No, but it's beautiful. That's how it works out on this show.
Honest to God, Disney and Netflix did not pay us to boost their profits. Certainly not. But we're open to talking negotiation. Yeah.
No. Anyway, but this is where I confess this to you as I was making something for a seat before we. Yes. I had never seen Miracle on 34th street before.
And it's. It's. Okay. First of all, I don't know why.
It just wasn't a Christmas movie in our house growing up. And then, I don't know, once I hit my 20s, I didn't think about it. And working in retail, I had a very long history of just not liking anything Christmassy all that much. Yeah.
Except for between, like, the 23rd and the 26th of December, the way I. What? One day you give yourself. One day?
I give myself about three days. But no, when I was growing up, yes. I did have both versions of Miracle on 34 on in the House. This one as well as the remake in the 90s with Richard Attenborough, which I am.
It's not as good as the original, but I still rather enjoy it. But one of the big movies that was in my household a lot was Home Alone. And I will never forget every single time, you know, Kevin Callister is going around. Mom, where are you guys?
He turns on the television in the kitchen, and it's the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade sequence from Miracle on 34th street, which always kind of led me to go, okay, I gotta go watch Miracle on 34th Street. And the voice of Piglet. Jingle bells, dingle bell. Trashed now.
I mean, this movie opens with, you know, there's some great New York footage. Some of this was absolutely shot in Hollywood, but there's some great New York location stuff. And it opens with that shot of 34th street and Chris Pringle walking up the sidewalk. And I realized we've walked up that sidewalk.
Yeah, a number of times. Usually when we're at your Comic Con on the way back to PATH train or. Because I need to go to Macy's. Other.
Yes, I need to pick up something. Macy's. Okay. And just to see how different it was.
I mean it's still all stores there, but now it's like Old Navy and all those other stores that are across the street there. And you know, right around the corner being the Hotel Pennsylvania and then you know, a block further back, basically where their camera seem to be set up is now where Madison Square Garden is. But that was not there. They had a reverse shot later on in the movie, like when he's going to see the mayor, quote unquote, they're actually taking him to Bellevue.
You can look back down that street. You can see on the left hand side where Madison Square Garden would have been, will be in the future. But it's all, you know, tall buildings and stuff. So just from that little standpoint, I'm like, wow, what a time capsule.
And this is such a great movie though. Well, it's also a time capsule in a way of talking. I mean, God, they go into the rivalry between Macy's and Gimbels. It's not in the film very long, but that was a major, major department store rivalry.
And that both stores kind of went along, especially Macy. Macy's went along with this whole thing, this script, which at. It's very. Okay, it's very anti capitalism.
Yeah. Which. Okay, I'm fine with that because you know, you know, peak capitalism I have issues with. We'll leave it at that.
But as I was doing some research on this, you know, last night after I watched it, you know, I was trying to dig around. Remember how it came out a few years back that It's a Wonderful Life was investigated by the FBI because of supposed communist themes and ideas hidden in the movie. Yeah, this one too. No, really, really.
I'm absolutely shocked that there's nothing about that in this movie. Because I'm sitting here watching going, okay, this whole scene with Chris and the 17 year old floor sweeper here, that's. That' should have a red flag for the FBI. Just toss it on the floor.
I get tired of sweeping up dust in that whole paranoid 50s era. I was really shocked that I couldn't find a reference to that. Now it maybe was, and maybe no one's ever stumbled across those files to release it out the public, but I was kind of a little surprised. Oh, I love how it can be perfectly anti capitalism with Macy's and Gimbels agreeing to help Kris Kringle get an X ray machine for his friend as a Christmas present.
Like the coming together but at the exact same time. Later on when Mr. Macy is up on the witness stand at the courthouse and he's being asked if he thinks Chris is the one and only Santa Claus, we get the newspaper clipping of R.H. macy admits his Santa is a fraud and he's worried about how it's gonna make him okay.
Yeah, I mean it's funny because he's obviously a very practical man and a very pragmatic man. He makes a pragmatic decision on the Santa City. I believe he Santa Claus and oh, spoilers for 75 year old movie. And I was kinda like, okay, this is interesting because this is kind of complex.
It's funny, but it's certainly making a point here as well. And I was like, oh, wow, this, I mean people watch this. It's like it's a nice happy movie. It's about Christmas, it's about Santa, it's about believing.
There's a lot more going on here, I think. Yeah. Oh, just how they win the court case by using our U.S. mail system.
You didn't know how it ended. I know that it ended with yo, all these letters from kids being dumped on the judge's desk. I want them right here on my desk. Yes.
And they said 5,000 letters on his desk. And I just thought that was kind of like, well, if all these kids believe and you should believe too and that should be enough. But to actually loop it into, well, a branch of our federal government. The post office only delivers mail to the actual person.
These are directed address to Santa Claus. And we're delivering them. They deliver them right here to us. So he must be Santa Claus.
That's according to the government is such a funny thing. I honestly laugh. I burst out laughing at the audaciousness of it. It's a little cynical, which is up your alley.
Yeah, it's absolutely cynical. It's like aha. It's just twisting everything and forming a weird chain of logic. Well, if you do this and this and this, obviously it's almost the post office is there's a law that they cannot willfully misdirect mail.
And they all delivered him here, so therefore, he must be Santa Claus. It's so. It's cynically fun. It's like, aha, you know, using your own system against you in a way that really appealed to me.
And I was like, yeah, this is awesome. And the fact that the judge is coming up for reelection, so he's so worried about how this. How this court case could completely just ruin his damn career. And they're like, if you go back out there and you claim that there is no such thing as Santa Claus, I won't even be able to get you on the ballot ticket.
And of course, that was William Frawley, who plays Fred Mertz on I Love Lucy, one of just a number of amazing character acts. But finish your thought, and then we're gonna hit those characters. Oh, my favorite. My favorite line in the entire movie comes in out of that scene is, if you do that, you'll count on getting two votes.
Yours. And that district attorney's out there. District attorney is a Republican. Walks out like, oh, shit.
And the district attorney, if you didn't like his character here, if you thought he's a jerk and a creep, that's actor Jerome Cohen. And you can watch him get shot as Miles Archer in the Humphrey Boggart multi Falcon. I've only seen Malty Falcon, I think twice. You know, it's not one of my favorites.
I know, I know. But his Miles Archer is also kind of a creep too, so it's kind of fun to watch him get shot. And Maureen o' Hara is delightful here, by the way. This is a great Maureen o' Hara performance.
I mean, I'm more partial to her in, like, At Swords Point, where she's a quiet man for me. Okay. Also good. But here she go.
Something you don't often see either in movies of this era. A divorced woman with a career and a child. And a child, yeah. And they're just fine and dandy without man in their life.
And half of me is like, how did that get by his office? Well, I think there's a. There is a point to be shown here, is that even at that time, it was a reality for a lot of people. And they never actually state whether or not she.
Well, no, they did say that she was divorced. Oh, yeah. Very soon after, you know, the child was born. And I like how they play her character as turning bitter because she believed in love.
She believed in fairy tales. And then she grows up and sees the world as it truly is and loses that. That wonderment that life she thought she had her happily ever after. And it didn't last that long.
No, not very long. Back in that time, it wasn't just marriage that was happily ever after. It was the life that came from having a kid, from having a family, from having a home. And that's something very much reinforced by Hollywood and partly due to the Hayes office and opposing, you know, the Production Code and family values.
You know, you can't have women having kids out of wedlock. I mean, so they, you know, she didn't have a kid, but they were married, then he quickly left. And honestly, that's a nice cheat. Yeah, it's a good cheat.
And honestly, if that wasn't there, they could have gone just with, yeah, I had a child out of wedlocket. I'm still trying to make everything work and this guy promised him and he disappeared or whatever. And you. You still have the same movie, I think.
Yeah. No, I think you definitely could have. They probably had to fix that. Yeah.
For the Hayes Code. But there's that scene where it does end with them becoming a family. Yes, but no, there's that scene, that wonderful scene of Maureen o' Hara's, I really need to mention, which is right after Mr. Daly takes Susan to see Santa Claus and she's tearing into him and kind of regaling what happily ever after could do to her daughter.
And then. And. And he says, we were talking about Susan. Yes.
She has this look on her face. You feel her anguish, her. Her pain from years and years and years ago. And then really quickly, she snaps in the business mode of I.
She. Regardless, Susan's my responsibility. And I need to bring her up as I see fitness. And I was just like, that is a woman you don't want to mess with.
When you come to her cup like it. She's very strong and not in the type that you usually see in these period films. So it's very impressive, too. And can we talk about the.
The Whiskers moment? Because that's brilliant. Not with Susan, with. When Mr.
Gailey is rooming with Chris Ringle. Yeah. Yes. Growing up, I never had that thought in my head.
Did you ever think about that? Really? No. No.
But I don't think I had. I'm trying to think here. None of the adults around me had beards. I think, wait.
Our one neighbor, my friend Todd's dad, had a beard, but it wasn't like bushy and long. It was, you know, fairly well trimmed and short, maybe. Maybe about an inch long. I'm trying to remember beards Have a lot about it.
Remember? Well, beards, for the longest time weren't the fashion. No, no. Especially not the 70s and 80s.
Yeah. And definitely not in the 30s and 40s. It was all about the mustache or keeping it clean shaven. And I think that's how it's always been.
I think beards, to a certain extent, were either seen as something for the old, or they were a symbol of an eastern culture. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.
So for the longest time, I mean, it was a lot of just clean shade in our mustaches. Yeah. Generally it was like old men had beards. Like in any, like, 40s movie or 30s movie where they had, like, a gathering of old people, it was just old guys with gray beards.
Until, like, you. Until you start counting backwards to about 50, and then, you know, it stopped. Yeah. It was always like, here's the boardroom of the guys who run the company, and they're all old men of beards.
Yeah, no, that's true. Usually balding, Maybe a little hair on the side. A mustache that kind of curled, and then a long triangle beard. Yeah.
It's a fun little moment. And Edwin certainly seems to be like, oh, no. Cold air helps grow. And, you know, he has a little fun with it.
Yeah. There's some great, great supporting actors in this thing. Oh, my God. Yes.
Well, first of all, down in the mail room, Jack Albertson, AKA Grandpa from Willy Wonka the Chocolate Factory. Shit. That's who that was. I was watching it last night going, why does he look so damn familiar?
But it's like 30 years before this, so of course, I wasn't able to catch on that that was who that was. Wow. There should be one that you recognize, if not by name, by face. Porter hall, who played Mr.
Sawyer. He did love himyer. And he's in Doubled Envity, one of your favorites. That's why I hated him in Double Indemnity.
By all accounts, was a very lovely man, but he played a lot of creeps. Sold in Travels. Ace in the hole. If you see his mug show up.
I'm from Mettford, Oregon. Yeah, that's who sees his face show up in the movie. You're gonna be like, I'm gonna not like you. I get this movie, the one I was happy to see the mother of the first kid on Santa's On.
Yes. Who was that? That's Thelma Ritter. This is, like, her first big break.
Thelma Ritter was a great character actor through the 40s, 50s, and into the 60s. Yeah, I know the name, and I can't think of a movie that she's ever done. I recognized the face. Well, she was nominated six times for supporting actress for Academy Award, including her first one was for All About Eve.