1 00:00:00,280 --> 00:00:03,880 We must go out and dispose of those people from down Yonder 2 00:00:03,880 --> 00:00:06,600 and Cross River who want to come in here and talk. 3 00:00:07,240 --> 00:00:15,240 We must dispose of them, you understand, because we are the 4 00:00:15,240 --> 00:00:20,120 individual means, and we must carry our glorious philosophy 5 00:00:20,120 --> 00:00:26,880 through to its glorious culmination so that the end with 6 00:00:26,880 --> 00:00:31,040 enterprise and determination, the world and everything in it 7 00:00:31,480 --> 00:00:36,520 will belong to one individual, me, and that'll be the ultimate, 8 00:00:36,520 --> 00:00:48,400 the absolute ultimate. So means after we kill the 9 00:00:48,400 --> 00:00:52,920 interlopers, the talkers, the involvers who are on their way 10 00:00:52,920 --> 00:01:00,160 here now, we shall then be free. Proceed with the most important 11 00:01:00,160 --> 00:01:07,280 business of all, which is the killing of each other, until 12 00:01:07,280 --> 00:01:17,800 there remains only the one individual, me, right, one, one 13 00:01:17,800 --> 00:01:25,040 alone, alone. And let's get at it. 14 00:01:26,120 --> 00:01:28,760 Each behind his own fence, each behind his own barricade. 15 00:01:29,960 --> 00:01:34,720 Follow me, my friends, my loved ones, to the perfect society, 16 00:01:35,560 --> 00:02:15,240 the civilization of I. So what was it being Christmas 17 00:02:15,240 --> 00:02:19,560 Eve till I thought what What better way to mark the Cajun 18 00:02:20,720 --> 00:02:23,720 than by talking about a heart warming Christmas film where 19 00:02:23,720 --> 00:02:27,680 where people forget their cares, they come together and much 20 00:02:27,680 --> 00:02:33,840 merriment ensues. Look, that's my Jingle Bells. 21 00:02:36,400 --> 00:02:38,840 It reflects the whimsical nature of the film. 22 00:02:38,880 --> 00:02:41,520 The the the bell I'm ringing. Very nice. 23 00:02:42,200 --> 00:02:44,160 It is women's school. It No, it's not is it? 24 00:02:44,160 --> 00:02:48,280 It's, it's, it's like being it's like a it's about as uplifting 25 00:02:48,280 --> 00:02:50,560 as a weekend away with Philip Larkin. 26 00:02:51,160 --> 00:02:52,920 Actually, it wouldn't be too bad. 27 00:02:52,920 --> 00:02:58,400 Actually thinking about it. No, this week for Christmas 28 00:02:58,480 --> 00:03:01,920 we're, we're, we're talking about a film which has Peter 29 00:03:01,920 --> 00:03:04,960 Sellers in it and it's set at Christmas and it's very 30 00:03:04,960 --> 00:03:06,840 interesting and there's plenty to say about it. 31 00:03:07,240 --> 00:03:11,040 But as I say, it's it's a little bit heavy going, shall we say. 32 00:03:11,200 --> 00:03:15,720 I enjoyed it more re watching it last night by myself. 33 00:03:16,280 --> 00:03:20,440 OK, maybe because I didn't have to worry about anybody else's 34 00:03:20,440 --> 00:03:22,840 reactions. Well, don't get me wrong, I 35 00:03:22,840 --> 00:03:24,360 didn't. I didn't dislike it. 36 00:03:25,200 --> 00:03:28,360 Oh, no, no. But it was kind of like cold 37 00:03:28,360 --> 00:03:33,640 water right in the face, wasn't it, In some respects so. 38 00:03:33,720 --> 00:03:35,160 Well, hang on. Before we before we go any 39 00:03:35,160 --> 00:03:37,720 further, I should formally introduce you to the boys and 40 00:03:37,720 --> 00:03:41,360 girls. You are a returning guest friend 41 00:03:41,360 --> 00:03:46,720 of mine, someone who's who's been on a number of times, and 42 00:03:46,720 --> 00:03:52,520 you're also something of A Christmas Carol obsessive, if 43 00:03:52,520 --> 00:03:58,960 you don't mind me saying. Obsessive, but yes, there were 44 00:03:58,960 --> 00:04:01,320 very few versions of A Christmas Carol. 45 00:04:01,320 --> 00:04:05,680 I won't watch at least once. I even once watched something 46 00:04:05,680 --> 00:04:08,440 called the Valentine's Carol. I really haven't returned much 47 00:04:08,440 --> 00:04:11,880 of what happened in it. But I mean, one year. 48 00:04:11,880 --> 00:04:17,279 One year I did watch 50 in in the in just the month of 49 00:04:17,279 --> 00:04:21,279 December. I did try and do a podcast about 50 00:04:21,279 --> 00:04:26,240 it and it was just exactly the wrong time in my life to be 51 00:04:26,240 --> 00:04:30,680 doing anything. So that's stalled after about 6 52 00:04:30,680 --> 00:04:33,760 or 7. We can call this an an official. 53 00:04:33,760 --> 00:04:38,880 Maybe eventually I'll finish out the 12 and and just re release 54 00:04:38,880 --> 00:04:40,960 them. Maybe next year we can call this 55 00:04:40,960 --> 00:04:43,120 one of them. I think I, in fact, I did. 56 00:04:43,120 --> 00:04:46,000 I, I was on it. I talked about the Muppet 57 00:04:46,000 --> 00:04:47,720 Christmas Carol, which I hadn't seen. 58 00:04:47,760 --> 00:04:50,640 Oh, right. Up to that point, you've 59 00:04:50,640 --> 00:04:53,800 forgotten that. Yes, yeah. 60 00:04:55,680 --> 00:04:57,160 I. Forget that entire year, but 61 00:04:57,160 --> 00:04:58,720 let. Me formally introduce you. 62 00:04:58,720 --> 00:05:03,760 It is tilt a riser. Hello, Merry Christmas. 63 00:05:04,000 --> 00:05:05,720 Merry Christmas, you are full of the joys. 64 00:05:05,960 --> 00:05:07,280 But you do like Christmas, don't you? 65 00:05:07,640 --> 00:05:09,720 You do enjoy Christmas. I do, yeah. 66 00:05:09,720 --> 00:05:14,040 This, this was something that was being discussed the other 67 00:05:14,040 --> 00:05:18,160 day between a number of us. It is one of the things I sort 68 00:05:18,160 --> 00:05:21,000 of. Disagree majorly with Gary. 69 00:05:21,600 --> 00:05:25,160 I Co presented from the sitcom club and Jaffa Cakes with Bruce 70 00:05:26,360 --> 00:05:28,280 Hazel sort of Oh yeah, childhood. 71 00:05:28,280 --> 00:05:34,080 It's, you know, there's nothing is there and it's like, no, 72 00:05:34,080 --> 00:05:38,920 it's, it's a special little season set aside where the 73 00:05:38,920 --> 00:05:42,240 special food and the special films and the special TV 74 00:05:42,240 --> 00:05:45,240 programmes and you decorate. Your house? 75 00:05:45,840 --> 00:05:48,400 How can that not like? Just. 76 00:05:49,200 --> 00:05:52,080 Represent a break from the norm. How can that not be slightly 77 00:05:52,080 --> 00:05:55,360 uplifting? Do you not find though the the 78 00:05:55,360 --> 00:05:59,320 build up is better than the day itself in some respects or it 79 00:05:59,320 --> 00:06:00,560 used to be? Well, that's fine. 80 00:06:00,640 --> 00:06:02,520 That's fine. You enjoy the building, you 81 00:06:02,520 --> 00:06:04,080 know, enjoying the journey. That's great. 82 00:06:04,320 --> 00:06:07,120 Yeah. It's very much more the case 83 00:06:07,120 --> 00:06:14,800 over here in the US where I live that it's over by like the late 84 00:06:14,800 --> 00:06:21,200 afternoon, the 25th it seems, and famously like movie theatres 85 00:06:21,200 --> 00:06:25,480 are open on Christmas Day. And they play games and sports, 86 00:06:25,640 --> 00:06:27,960 sporting events and things like that take place, don't they? 87 00:06:28,880 --> 00:06:31,600 Yeah, I think, I think a lot of newspapers will come out on 88 00:06:31,600 --> 00:06:32,400 Christmas Day. Oh. 89 00:06:33,120 --> 00:06:35,680 I ain't right that I ain't right, no. 90 00:06:35,800 --> 00:06:38,400 You mentioned the podcast Sitcom Club and Jaffa Cakes with Proust 91 00:06:38,400 --> 00:06:43,400 of course, which Which a periodic from being charitable 92 00:06:43,520 --> 00:06:45,000 at the moment anyway. Annual. 93 00:06:45,320 --> 00:06:50,200 Annual, if that. Yes, I'm I'm hoping we we still 94 00:06:50,200 --> 00:06:52,040 haven't recorded our Christmas special. 95 00:06:53,200 --> 00:06:55,200 Are you definitely doing? One, you've chosen it. 96 00:06:55,760 --> 00:06:57,720 Yes, we have to. It's Yeah. 97 00:06:57,720 --> 00:07:00,400 We can't. We can't not do that. 98 00:07:00,560 --> 00:07:02,120 Sorry. I'm getting over a cold. 99 00:07:02,120 --> 00:07:06,480 So if I sound like hell, it's because I feel like hell. 100 00:07:06,680 --> 00:07:08,600 You're a professional, you work through it, don't you? 101 00:07:09,600 --> 00:07:11,200 A professional. How much are you paying me? 102 00:07:11,200 --> 00:07:12,800 Then where shall I send the invoice? 103 00:07:13,840 --> 00:07:16,120 We'll talk about that later. It's Christmas, Come on. 104 00:07:17,280 --> 00:07:20,880 OK. OK, so you and I have talked 105 00:07:20,880 --> 00:07:22,440 about the film we're talking about today. 106 00:07:22,440 --> 00:07:24,680 We've talked about this over the years. 107 00:07:26,040 --> 00:07:28,480 For the for the longest time, it was forgotten about really, 108 00:07:28,480 --> 00:07:31,480 wasn't it? In fact, I don't think it's even 109 00:07:31,480 --> 00:07:34,680 mentioned once in the Roger Lewis, Peter Sellers book 110 00:07:35,040 --> 00:07:40,160 because when that when that came out, it hadn't been seen for 30 111 00:07:40,160 --> 00:07:43,760 years or more. And it's only in recent years 112 00:07:43,760 --> 00:07:45,840 that it's resurfaced. And it's now as it showed 113 00:07:45,840 --> 00:07:48,960 annually on TCM. Yeah. 114 00:07:49,560 --> 00:07:52,200 And it's, it's Carol for Another Christmas, which is an 115 00:07:52,200 --> 00:07:57,360 adaptation of. It's like a Cold War adaptation 116 00:07:57,400 --> 00:07:59,440 of. Very much so, yes. 117 00:07:59,800 --> 00:08:04,360 So it was the first of what was supposed to be series of 6 films 118 00:08:07,600 --> 00:08:12,120 sponsored not in that sense, but sponsored by the UN. 119 00:08:13,080 --> 00:08:15,400 So there were meant to be 6 films. 120 00:08:15,560 --> 00:08:18,960 Effectively showing by the UN is good and necessary. 121 00:08:19,280 --> 00:08:22,280 Yeah, this one was written by Rod Serling. 122 00:08:23,080 --> 00:08:26,840 Yes, it was a big noise in American television at the time, 123 00:08:26,840 --> 00:08:28,760 of course. Indeed, yes. 124 00:08:28,800 --> 00:08:31,920 I mean, it's, he's now sort of kind of thought of as the 125 00:08:31,920 --> 00:08:37,720 Twilight Zone man. But I mean, he had been a big 126 00:08:37,720 --> 00:08:44,400 noise, as you say, in there's something that USTV historians 127 00:08:44,400 --> 00:08:49,000 call the golden age of, of American television, which is 128 00:08:49,000 --> 00:08:51,800 sort of like, say, say, 49 to 55. 129 00:08:51,800 --> 00:08:55,520 And that's when everything's being invented and you're still 130 00:08:55,520 --> 00:08:58,200 allowed to do intellectual things. 131 00:08:59,120 --> 00:09:04,320 And so Rod Soling was coming up as part of this whole scene, 132 00:09:05,120 --> 00:09:09,360 like Paddy Chayefsky, you know, that they were contemporaries. 133 00:09:09,360 --> 00:09:11,960 They were talked of in the same breath. 134 00:09:12,800 --> 00:09:19,480 And yes, he was seen as a legit, serious television writer. 135 00:09:20,640 --> 00:09:24,280 I think one of his breakthrough pieces was called Patterns, 136 00:09:25,640 --> 00:09:29,400 which was, you know, it's all about the corporate world and 137 00:09:29,800 --> 00:09:36,040 got made into a movie. And as far as the Twilight Zone 138 00:09:36,040 --> 00:09:43,640 goes, the the, the famous story is he was writing a drama that 139 00:09:43,640 --> 00:09:46,480 was, and I can't remember the name is, I think it was Emmett 140 00:09:46,480 --> 00:09:51,360 Till. It was kind of a parallel with 141 00:09:51,360 --> 00:09:56,880 the case of Emmett Till. Emmett Till was the victim of a 142 00:09:56,880 --> 00:10:00,120 lynching. He was accused of offending a 143 00:10:00,120 --> 00:10:03,440 white woman and was murdered for it. 144 00:10:04,360 --> 00:10:10,160 So serving had written a drama that was sort of parallel with 145 00:10:10,160 --> 00:10:12,760 this. And then the the network got 146 00:10:12,760 --> 00:10:14,840 involved and the sponsor got involved. 147 00:10:15,120 --> 00:10:21,520 And by the end of it, it was the the victim was no longer African 148 00:10:21,520 --> 00:10:26,480 American. He was like his Hispanic and he 149 00:10:26,480 --> 00:10:29,880 didn't get killed. And they basically took 150 00:10:29,920 --> 00:10:33,520 everything that could be seen as a parallel to this real life 151 00:10:33,520 --> 00:10:36,360 case and pulled it out. And so in the end, you ended up 152 00:10:36,360 --> 00:10:41,240 with something that was irrelevant really. 153 00:10:41,920 --> 00:10:46,520 There's also the case of Judgement at Nuremberg, which, 154 00:10:46,920 --> 00:10:51,960 and this sounds like a bad joke, I believe Judgement at Nuremberg 155 00:10:51,960 --> 00:10:58,560 was sponsored by a gas company, which meant that there was a 156 00:10:58,560 --> 00:11:05,200 certain aspect of the case that they were not in favour of being 157 00:11:05,200 --> 00:11:09,400 mentioned at all. I'm with yes, Serling. 158 00:11:10,840 --> 00:11:14,560 He couldn't deal with the things he wanted to deal with head on. 159 00:11:14,560 --> 00:11:16,640 He'd hit the wall too many times. 160 00:11:16,640 --> 00:11:20,240 And that so it was like, OK, let's turn it into allegory. 161 00:11:20,240 --> 00:11:23,120 And that became a successful thing. 162 00:11:23,360 --> 00:11:26,520 But it it means now that Serling's kind of thought of as 163 00:11:26,520 --> 00:11:31,640 as more of a pop cultural figure, whereas coming up he was 164 00:11:32,400 --> 00:11:35,760 seen as a high cultural figure. And there is a surviving 165 00:11:35,760 --> 00:11:41,480 interview where the interviewer kind of asks him about the 166 00:11:41,480 --> 00:11:45,520 Twilight Zone is like, are you, have you given up on serious 167 00:11:45,520 --> 00:11:46,560 drama? Which? 168 00:11:47,480 --> 00:11:50,560 I think serving sort of says it's not really an either or 169 00:11:50,560 --> 00:11:52,320 case. There's some there's some 170 00:11:52,400 --> 00:11:55,080 excellent half hours of television in the Twilight Zone 171 00:11:55,080 --> 00:11:57,480 though that that are not trashy. There are, yes. 172 00:11:57,480 --> 00:11:58,200 They're not. Yes. 173 00:11:58,480 --> 00:12:01,360 They require, you know the grey matter to be working. 174 00:12:01,640 --> 00:12:05,000 One of the great. Are we talking about The 175 00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:09,800 Twilight Zone in terms of being great television in In his later 176 00:12:09,800 --> 00:12:14,640 years, Rod Serling taught writing television drama 177 00:12:14,640 --> 00:12:21,000 writing. And so because of course, 178 00:12:21,480 --> 00:12:24,480 certainly like 50 years ago. So there, there's there are no 179 00:12:24,480 --> 00:12:29,720 commentary tracks out there. But what you do have is there 180 00:12:29,720 --> 00:12:32,320 were certain cases where he would show his Class A Twilight 181 00:12:32,320 --> 00:12:36,000 Zone and then talk about it afterwards. 182 00:12:37,360 --> 00:12:41,120 And they kind of act as a quasi commentary track. 183 00:12:41,560 --> 00:12:44,840 What you get is some of these superb half hours of television 184 00:12:45,200 --> 00:12:47,640 and then you go back and you listen to Serling tell you 185 00:12:47,640 --> 00:12:48,960 about. Why it's some of the worst. 186 00:12:48,960 --> 00:12:51,000 Garbage that was ever put on screen. 187 00:12:51,440 --> 00:12:54,760 And Oh my God, he, he just sees all the flaws. 188 00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:58,760 Heck, he just picks apart his old work. 189 00:13:16,880 --> 00:13:22,480 The The thing is that he could write some superb television, 190 00:13:22,840 --> 00:13:27,480 but sometimes he could just get kind of blinded by there's 191 00:13:27,840 --> 00:13:31,120 there's a particular there's a twilight zone called the thing I 192 00:13:31,120 --> 00:13:38,680 am the night colour be black. That's just it's it's angry, but 193 00:13:38,680 --> 00:13:42,720 that's kind of almost all it is. And this suffers from the same 194 00:13:42,720 --> 00:13:44,200 thing. It's didactic. 195 00:13:45,960 --> 00:13:49,360 One of the things it really suffers from is to break it 196 00:13:49,360 --> 00:13:53,320 down. And because the scene with 197 00:13:53,320 --> 00:13:56,360 Sellers in is the best scene, not necessarily just because of 198 00:13:56,360 --> 00:13:58,640 him, he's definitely contributing vector. 199 00:13:59,440 --> 00:14:02,720 So let's let's get into the characters. 200 00:14:04,080 --> 00:14:06,320 Our lead character is called Daniel Grudge. 201 00:14:06,920 --> 00:14:10,800 He was going to be called Benjamin Grudge because that 202 00:14:10,800 --> 00:14:14,200 would make his initial surname B Grudge. 203 00:14:16,440 --> 00:14:18,840 Again, the network went, oh, but that's BG. 204 00:14:18,840 --> 00:14:20,840 That's the same as Barry Goldwater. 205 00:14:21,240 --> 00:14:23,080 People will think it's an attack on him. 206 00:14:23,680 --> 00:14:26,760 Daniel Grudge. And, and Barry Goldwater at the 207 00:14:26,760 --> 00:14:28,960 time was very critical of the UN as well, wasn't he? 208 00:14:29,640 --> 00:14:32,080 So that would have been, yes. Well, a lot of people. 209 00:14:32,080 --> 00:14:36,520 Were very critical of the UN, which is which is why the UN is 210 00:14:36,640 --> 00:14:40,920 like trying to I suppose win people over with television. 211 00:14:40,920 --> 00:14:46,000 Look television. So Dan Grudge played by Sterling 212 00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:51,920 Hayden and his nephew who's called Fred OK and they 213 00:14:51,920 --> 00:14:57,960 basically talk at each other. Grudge represents an 214 00:14:57,960 --> 00:15:03,640 isolationist mindset and effectively how the rest of the 215 00:15:03,640 --> 00:15:07,920 world's problems and on America's problems, and we 216 00:15:07,920 --> 00:15:10,280 shouldn't get involved, but we should always say we've got a 217 00:15:10,280 --> 00:15:13,160 bigger bomb than everybody else. So there. 218 00:15:15,000 --> 00:15:17,200 So nephew Fred played by Benghazara. 219 00:15:17,200 --> 00:15:21,440 So they hash it out. And then the Ghost of Christmas 220 00:15:21,440 --> 00:15:26,520 passed similar talking points. There's just a lot of like, 221 00:15:26,680 --> 00:15:29,360 here's Sterling Hayden, here's a person playing a ghost. 222 00:15:29,680 --> 00:15:33,040 They're just going to talk at each other and hash out. 223 00:15:34,200 --> 00:15:36,120 Whether the UN is a good thing or not. 224 00:15:37,360 --> 00:15:39,920 Yeah, it it was unbelievably dialogue heavy. 225 00:15:40,240 --> 00:15:43,440 And I'm not necessarily, that's not necessarily a problem for 226 00:15:43,440 --> 00:15:46,840 me. Also, it's 84 minutes, yeah. 227 00:15:46,920 --> 00:15:53,200 And I think that's too much time we do we do get to see actually 228 00:15:53,200 --> 00:15:57,680 hang on a minute. He so the ghostly Christmas 229 00:15:57,680 --> 00:16:01,800 past, They're they're on a ship which is sending bodies back 230 00:16:01,800 --> 00:16:05,400 from wars from the First World War. 231 00:16:07,520 --> 00:16:12,360 And they talk about isolationism versus being involved. 232 00:16:13,240 --> 00:16:17,680 And then the ghost does actually take him to a part of his own 233 00:16:17,680 --> 00:16:20,640 past, but he actually specifically mentions it's 234 00:16:20,640 --> 00:16:23,840 September. September takes him back to 235 00:16:23,880 --> 00:16:28,560 September 1945. And we have a scene set in 236 00:16:28,560 --> 00:16:34,720 Hiroshima, which again, does not hold back on the horrors, the 237 00:16:34,720 --> 00:16:39,080 things that, you know, the things that happen to bodies 238 00:16:40,480 --> 00:16:42,400 when there's a thermonuclear explosion. 239 00:16:42,400 --> 00:16:45,320 Well, you've got. You've got you've got school 240 00:16:45,320 --> 00:16:48,320 kids who have lost their faces, although you don't see. 241 00:16:48,320 --> 00:16:50,760 Effectively, yes. But but they have their faces 242 00:16:50,760 --> 00:16:55,040 bandaged the. Thing is is that Grudge doesn't 243 00:16:55,040 --> 00:17:00,920 seem all that different, but he is quite nice to a schoolboy 244 00:17:00,960 --> 00:17:07,480 who's lost his sisters. But it doesn't seem there's no 245 00:17:07,480 --> 00:17:09,440 like this. You know, this is the person you 246 00:17:09,440 --> 00:17:11,240 used to be, used to be all for it. 247 00:17:11,520 --> 00:17:14,119 It's not. It's like you were slightly. 248 00:17:14,119 --> 00:17:20,839 Less hard line. Is his bitterness largely owing 249 00:17:20,839 --> 00:17:24,119 to the fact that his son was killed in the Second World War? 250 00:17:24,200 --> 00:17:26,839 Oh, yes, yeah. Then that that's that's an easy 251 00:17:26,839 --> 00:17:30,600 thing to forget. So his son was called Mali. 252 00:17:31,440 --> 00:17:36,960 There's some claims that Marley was played by Peter Fonda. 253 00:17:38,800 --> 00:17:41,000 That's right. The IMDb says that Marley grudge 254 00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:44,120 was played by Gordon Spencer. I think that we're seen shot 255 00:17:44,120 --> 00:17:47,560 with him. But all we just, it's, it's 256 00:17:47,560 --> 00:17:51,040 just, it's just reduced to he sees his reflection. 257 00:17:51,240 --> 00:17:55,600 Then for a moment he sees him sitting at a dining table. 258 00:17:56,480 --> 00:18:00,360 Because, you know, fine, OK, that's, that's Banquo's job. 259 00:18:00,400 --> 00:18:06,120 But, you know, so talking about this as a specific parallel with 260 00:18:06,120 --> 00:18:09,120 the original Christmas Carol story. 261 00:18:09,440 --> 00:18:15,040 So the thing Scrooge's sin in the Original Christmas Carol is 262 00:18:15,040 --> 00:18:17,680 not that he doesn't like Christmas. 263 00:18:20,120 --> 00:18:25,600 It is that he seals himself up completely and believes that 264 00:18:25,720 --> 00:18:28,120 other people's problems are not his problems. 265 00:18:28,400 --> 00:18:30,880 He does not owe anybody anything. 266 00:18:31,800 --> 00:18:34,960 Any problems anybody has, they brought upon themselves and it's 267 00:18:34,960 --> 00:18:40,880 not his place to help. So it's not even that he's he's 268 00:18:40,880 --> 00:18:45,440 rich and he does because he's not just like he's rich in a 269 00:18:45,440 --> 00:18:50,280 world of poverty, he's rich and he doesn't use it for anything. 270 00:18:50,280 --> 00:18:53,160 He just saves it up. He's a miser. 271 00:18:53,160 --> 00:18:57,360 Specifically, he's a he's a financial miser, but he's also 272 00:18:57,360 --> 00:19:02,160 an emotional miser. All that money and he he gets no 273 00:19:02,160 --> 00:19:04,640 joy from it. Yeah, exactly. 274 00:19:06,080 --> 00:19:09,320 And so that and, and in so in this, it's like, yes, this. 275 00:19:09,320 --> 00:19:15,560 So Scrooge is a personal isolationist grudge is a 276 00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:23,040 political isolationist, but it's the same sin that he's 277 00:19:23,040 --> 00:19:26,400 committing. I have my stuff, they have their 278 00:19:26,400 --> 00:19:28,720 stuff, and I'm not going to get involved. 279 00:19:28,760 --> 00:19:32,480 I don't owe anybody anything. Yeah, he's he goes on about 280 00:19:32,480 --> 00:19:36,960 staying on on our side of the fence and he he wants the he 281 00:19:36,960 --> 00:19:42,160 wants the US arm to the teeth with with weaponry to send a 282 00:19:42,160 --> 00:19:44,360 message. Stay out of our backyard and we 283 00:19:44,360 --> 00:19:46,680 don't want to get involved with your battles. 284 00:19:46,680 --> 00:19:50,000 Rest of the world. In fact, there's a bit where 285 00:19:50,000 --> 00:19:53,160 he's talking to the ghost of Christmas past that he's they're 286 00:19:53,160 --> 00:19:56,920 surrounded by these coffins with the dead from the First World 287 00:19:56,920 --> 00:19:59,640 War. And he says something along the 288 00:19:59,640 --> 00:20:01,880 lines of, and I wrote this down in my notes. 289 00:20:01,880 --> 00:20:04,520 I can't remember the exact phrase, but he he refers to 290 00:20:04,920 --> 00:20:08,720 people going to war as suckers. And I thought, that's very 291 00:20:08,720 --> 00:20:13,440 Trumpian, isn't it? OK, how how long is that 292 00:20:13,640 --> 00:20:16,520 everybody it was that we were heading for that I. 293 00:20:16,640 --> 00:20:18,960 Don't want, I don't want to bring modern politics into it, 294 00:20:18,960 --> 00:20:21,240 but. Take my green card off me time. 295 00:20:23,200 --> 00:20:25,200 Made the world safer Democracy. Did they? 296 00:20:26,240 --> 00:20:29,760 That's what they were told. They sure as hell gave it a try. 297 00:20:32,640 --> 00:20:35,360 They changed their hats, they update the slogans, but it's the 298 00:20:35,360 --> 00:20:39,200 same old shell game. Like clockwork, every 20 years 299 00:20:39,200 --> 00:20:41,640 somebody rings a fire bell 10,000 miles away. 300 00:20:42,080 --> 00:20:45,360 And how comes Uncle Sam's Expeditionary sucker brigade? 301 00:20:45,960 --> 00:20:48,680 Is that what they are? Suckers? 302 00:20:52,800 --> 00:20:54,200 Is that what your son's gonna be? 303 00:20:54,880 --> 00:21:04,960 My son, my son, my son will be a victim, just as these men are 304 00:21:04,960 --> 00:21:10,880 victims of somebody else's war. You kill me, Chief, You really 305 00:21:10,880 --> 00:21:12,560 do. If it isn't Valley Forge or the 306 00:21:12,560 --> 00:21:15,000 Boston Tea Party, you leave it strictly alone. 307 00:21:15,680 --> 00:21:18,760 Your big gripe is, what? Because every 20 years American 308 00:21:18,760 --> 00:21:21,120 boys got to climb on troop ships and head off someplace else? 309 00:21:21,880 --> 00:21:23,680 It rubs your Rd. So what else is new? 310 00:21:25,560 --> 00:21:30,560 60,000 Limeys die in Flanders. 100,000 Frogs catch it. 311 00:21:30,560 --> 00:21:33,120 If we're done. The Germans marched through 312 00:21:33,120 --> 00:21:35,600 Belgium and Austria declares war in Japan. 313 00:21:35,760 --> 00:21:38,200 But who cares? It's a nice summer. 314 00:21:39,360 --> 00:21:42,760 Yeah, Boston's going to win the World Series, so we'll rock on. 315 00:21:42,760 --> 00:21:47,120 The front porch is what flies. Do I translate? 316 00:21:47,120 --> 00:21:50,520 You're right, Chief. Better than American blood. 317 00:21:50,840 --> 00:21:52,960 Infinitely better than American. Amen. 318 00:21:52,960 --> 00:21:57,240 I grant you if it were possible, but it ain't possible. 319 00:21:57,680 --> 00:22:01,120 So this is the only television show ever directed by Joseph 320 00:22:01,120 --> 00:22:05,080 Mankiewicz. He'd been a leading film 321 00:22:05,080 --> 00:22:08,280 director. A lot of stuff I've never seen a 322 00:22:08,280 --> 00:22:10,120 lot but obviously heard of, like All About Eve. 323 00:22:10,160 --> 00:22:13,440 He's in the strange position because he's trying to live down 324 00:22:13,720 --> 00:22:20,680 Cleopatra because at this point Cleopatra is seen as a big bomb, 325 00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:27,160 which eventually, because of the way, you know, releases worked 326 00:22:27,160 --> 00:22:30,880 in those ways that a film could take sometimes years to work 327 00:22:30,880 --> 00:22:32,280 its. Way around the US. 328 00:22:33,560 --> 00:22:36,200 It's not the age of simultaneous releases. 329 00:22:36,200 --> 00:22:40,720 So I think, yes, it made its money back, eventually became 330 00:22:40,720 --> 00:22:43,720 seen as something of a classic. But he's coming straight out of 331 00:22:43,720 --> 00:22:48,160 the shadow of this idea. But also if we if we hadn't had 332 00:22:48,160 --> 00:22:52,080 Cleopatra, we probably wouldn't have had carry on Cleo. 333 00:22:52,920 --> 00:22:55,280 That's true. So that's yeah, he should. 334 00:22:57,600 --> 00:22:59,720 Are you saying he should have been just dining out on that? 335 00:23:01,360 --> 00:23:08,440 I facilitated the The Immortality of a Frank Muir and 336 00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:10,480 Denis Norden line. Absolutely. 337 00:23:11,360 --> 00:23:14,320 He he he directed Sleuth, which I do love. 338 00:23:14,880 --> 00:23:18,640 It's a great film. Yes. 339 00:23:18,640 --> 00:23:22,200 Well, we recently, well, I'm not for for the sake of spoilers, 340 00:23:22,200 --> 00:23:25,160 I'm going to say we recently watched a film in which it was 341 00:23:25,160 --> 00:23:29,160 fairly obvious that a character had come back in heavy make up. 342 00:23:29,760 --> 00:23:31,920 I'm not sure. I'm not sure I've ever seen any 343 00:23:31,920 --> 00:23:33,920 of those kind of things ever work. 344 00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:37,560 Which film was that? Remind me, which one was it? 345 00:23:38,160 --> 00:23:42,360 The Man in Black. Of course it was with with Sid 346 00:23:42,360 --> 00:23:44,000 James again. Back to Maggie. 347 00:23:44,040 --> 00:23:45,200 Oh, yeah, he was. He was seized. 348 00:23:45,320 --> 00:23:46,520 He was seized, wasn't he? And carry on. 349 00:23:46,520 --> 00:23:47,680 Clear. Yeah. 350 00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:49,200 Yeah, that's right. Of course. 351 00:23:49,280 --> 00:23:51,040 You know Valentine, Dial Goon and Jason of. 352 00:23:51,040 --> 00:23:55,120 Course, of course, of course. But Joseph Mankiewicz, So he 353 00:23:55,240 --> 00:23:59,880 he'd done all these great films, like you say, Cleopatra kind of 354 00:23:59,880 --> 00:24:02,120 tarnished his reputation for certainly for a while. 355 00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:06,800 And I guess it was an opportunity for him to, to pick 356 00:24:06,800 --> 00:24:12,360 up some work making this film. He'd also, he'd done, I believe 357 00:24:12,360 --> 00:24:16,120 he'd done a version of A Christmas Carol in the 30s Till. 358 00:24:16,120 --> 00:24:19,040 Have you seen that? I'm what? 359 00:24:19,160 --> 00:24:25,760 I'm not what as director or writer or what not seeing it in 360 00:24:25,760 --> 00:24:28,880 his directory. Directing filmography. 361 00:24:28,880 --> 00:24:29,440 Oh. Right. 362 00:24:29,440 --> 00:24:31,680 Well, maybe I've I've got deaf information there. 363 00:24:32,120 --> 00:24:33,200 OK, don't worry. No. 364 00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:34,920 He might, he might, he might have written one it. 365 00:24:37,080 --> 00:24:39,680 Might have been in one. Maybe it just happened to him 366 00:24:39,680 --> 00:24:43,480 once. He was visited by three spirits, 367 00:24:44,080 --> 00:24:45,880 he said. He actually not that bad, but 368 00:24:45,880 --> 00:24:49,200 we've got the booking now. So you want a balloon animal or 369 00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:49,760 something? Yeah. 370 00:24:53,080 --> 00:24:55,680 Well, moving on. So this this is this has got 371 00:24:56,160 --> 00:25:00,200 Peter Sellers and it's his first performance after recovering 372 00:25:00,200 --> 00:25:05,840 from a near fatal series of heart attacks earlier in the 373 00:25:05,840 --> 00:25:08,680 year. So he films Peter Sellers films 374 00:25:08,680 --> 00:25:13,400 his three or four days in October 64 and he had the heart 375 00:25:13,400 --> 00:25:17,600 attack in April. And I think, but for that, he 376 00:25:17,600 --> 00:25:20,080 would, I think his movie schedule would have, would have 377 00:25:20,080 --> 00:25:21,680 certainly prevented his availability. 378 00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:26,840 But the fact that he was obviously recovering, and he 379 00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:30,200 was, I guess he saw this as a way to ease himself back into 380 00:25:30,240 --> 00:25:33,240 acting. He doesn't look like somebody 381 00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:36,280 who's recovering from a major health crisis. 382 00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:39,080 No, he's right in there, isn't he? 383 00:25:39,400 --> 00:25:42,120 He is. Yeah, of course, he'd worked 384 00:25:42,120 --> 00:25:45,360 with Sterling Hayden on. Doctor Strangelove? 385 00:25:45,360 --> 00:25:46,400 Dr. Strangelove? Yeah. 386 00:25:47,360 --> 00:25:50,000 In which Sterling Hayden comes up with some talking points 387 00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:53,360 fairly similar to those of the John Birch Society. 388 00:25:54,360 --> 00:25:56,680 And the John Birch Society. So who? 389 00:25:56,800 --> 00:25:59,760 Who were they to? They they still exist, you know. 390 00:26:00,240 --> 00:26:02,320 All right. They were the kind. 391 00:26:02,320 --> 00:26:04,640 They are the kind of organization who do not approve 392 00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:06,960 of the UN. Of course, Bob Dylan famously 393 00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:13,200 wrote a song mocking them and they did start a letter writing 394 00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:18,680 campaign involving the sponsor. We, we when we were watching 395 00:26:18,680 --> 00:26:21,280 this together, you sort of said what, what's, you know, what's 396 00:26:21,280 --> 00:26:25,320 the situation with the sponsor? We thought, well, there is no 397 00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:27,440 sponsor. Surely the UN is the sponsor. 398 00:26:28,920 --> 00:26:31,080 But it was actually sponsored by Xerox. 399 00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:37,840 So there was a letter writing campaign against Xerox and it 400 00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:41,200 did kind of scare ABC, the network who was showing it and 401 00:26:41,200 --> 00:26:45,680 it. So it did certainly spook some 402 00:26:45,680 --> 00:26:50,120 of the people involved at a high level about whether they should 403 00:26:50,120 --> 00:26:55,520 be doing this sort of thing. So that's as far as that goes. 404 00:26:56,760 --> 00:26:58,920 So there weren't any adverts. Pedia is your friend. 405 00:26:59,120 --> 00:27:04,880 There were no commercials which you with something like this you 406 00:27:05,320 --> 00:27:08,560 you probably would have needed some trashy washing powder 407 00:27:08,560 --> 00:27:13,280 commercials to lighten things up a bit in between the unrelenting 408 00:27:13,280 --> 00:27:16,280 gloom. I am, I am fine with that. 409 00:27:16,280 --> 00:27:19,200 It just doesn't need to be 84 minutes long. 410 00:27:20,760 --> 00:27:26,280 And I think that's another place where Sterling gets unstuck is 411 00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:31,440 because there are these dialogue heavy scenes that you not, not 412 00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:34,880 to sound like a philistine, but there are dialogue heavy scenes 413 00:27:34,880 --> 00:27:39,560 that just there's a lot of stuff that is just restating the 414 00:27:39,560 --> 00:27:44,040 position. The ghost of Christmas presents. 415 00:27:44,800 --> 00:27:50,520 No. In the story, Scrooge is taken 416 00:27:50,520 --> 00:27:57,000 around the way people celebrate Christmas all across the 417 00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:58,800 country. Yeah. 418 00:27:59,880 --> 00:28:03,400 This is this is the point I sometimes make is that there's 419 00:28:03,400 --> 00:28:09,840 even a bit where right at the end they're leaving Scrooge and 420 00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:12,800 the ghosted Christmas present are leaving a 12th night party. 421 00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:17,200 Which suggests to me, because you know, this whole thing of 422 00:28:17,200 --> 00:28:18,760 all the ghosts did it all in one night. 423 00:28:19,120 --> 00:28:20,320 Yeah, yeah. That's. 424 00:28:20,360 --> 00:28:21,480 Right. Well, the the way a lot of 425 00:28:21,480 --> 00:28:25,600 versions of A Christmas Carol are staged, it just looks like a 426 00:28:25,600 --> 00:28:29,560 montage that he's taken through the video montages. 427 00:28:31,160 --> 00:28:33,760 Assuming that this whole thing is happening in real time. 428 00:28:34,280 --> 00:28:39,920 He's been away for two weeks. If he's gone through the 12 Days 429 00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:44,800 of Christmas present. And you know, it's not, it's not 430 00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:48,800 just like nephew, nephew Fred's party and the Cratchit's party. 431 00:28:49,080 --> 00:28:52,920 He's taken to a lighthouse. He's taken to a ship at sea. 432 00:28:54,360 --> 00:28:58,480 He's taken all over the place. And that's part of the point. 433 00:28:58,480 --> 00:29:03,080 And we don't get that at all. We don't even get, I mean, OK, 434 00:29:03,080 --> 00:29:04,440 we get. So. 435 00:29:05,320 --> 00:29:07,680 I've. Tired out my my poor vocal 436 00:29:07,680 --> 00:29:10,000 chords, Tyler, pick it. Pick this up. 437 00:29:10,200 --> 00:29:13,600 Yeah, so when does he in the story, in the original novella 438 00:29:14,360 --> 00:29:17,560 by Dickens, when does he see? What does he not see? 439 00:29:17,560 --> 00:29:21,840 Marley's Ghost on Christmas Eve. Yes. 440 00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:24,720 And and. And he is told he's not. 441 00:29:24,760 --> 00:29:27,080 He's told this. This whole idea of the first 442 00:29:27,080 --> 00:29:28,600 will come at one. The first will come at 2. 443 00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:32,880 No, the first will come at 1:00, he's told. 444 00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:37,360 The second will come at one the following night. 445 00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:41,360 Right. And the third will come at. 446 00:29:42,640 --> 00:29:47,680 So if he's not there for two weeks, he's it's, he's told it's 447 00:29:47,680 --> 00:29:52,480 three nights. Because I think the whole idea 448 00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:55,440 is, is that he experiences. So when he's experiencing 449 00:29:55,440 --> 00:29:59,760 Christmas past, he's experiencing him, his son, a 450 00:29:59,760 --> 00:30:03,080 morning and an afternoon and an evening, shall we say. 451 00:30:03,400 --> 00:30:05,520 He's there. He's, as far as he's concerned, 452 00:30:05,520 --> 00:30:08,520 he goes through a day, Christmas present. 453 00:30:08,520 --> 00:30:11,360 He either goes through a day or he goes through 12 days. 454 00:30:11,920 --> 00:30:17,720 But he doesn't just go go through a montage of what's 455 00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:21,680 happening, OK? He shot himself. 456 00:30:21,680 --> 00:30:25,760 So when he goes to the Cratch, it's it's what, the 27th or the 457 00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:28,360 OR the 28th rather than Christmas Day? 458 00:30:29,160 --> 00:30:34,400 So as far, yeah, as far as he's concerned, it's it's the 26th, 459 00:30:34,520 --> 00:30:39,040 but he's been, I don't think he's questioning it. 460 00:30:39,320 --> 00:30:43,640 OK, OK. So right, we've got Pet Hingle. 461 00:30:46,640 --> 00:30:48,480 Who I didn't recognise, I didn't recognise. 462 00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:50,160 I had to ask you guys who he was. 463 00:30:50,920 --> 00:30:53,720 And he's from Batman, isn't he? He's. 464 00:30:54,240 --> 00:30:57,200 Yeah, he's probably most famous. Him and Michael Goff are the 465 00:30:57,200 --> 00:31:00,480 only ones that are in all four of the Burton, Schumacher, 466 00:31:00,480 --> 00:31:04,680 Batman films. He plays Commissioner Gordon and 467 00:31:04,680 --> 00:31:09,880 it's a, it's a very effective because so he sees the ghost of 468 00:31:09,880 --> 00:31:11,760 Christmas present surrounded by plenty. 469 00:31:11,760 --> 00:31:15,200 So he's sitting at the end of this long banquet table and he's 470 00:31:15,200 --> 00:31:19,760 just stuffing his face. But again, it's a, it's a dark 471 00:31:19,760 --> 00:31:21,840 take on it. And he sort of clicks his 472 00:31:21,840 --> 00:31:24,880 fingers and then we see there's there's the barbed wire fence 473 00:31:25,320 --> 00:31:28,880 and there's a camp for displaced persons. 474 00:31:30,920 --> 00:31:35,000 And so he's eating all this while there are people starving. 475 00:31:36,640 --> 00:31:40,280 And Grudge says, how can you do that? 476 00:31:40,280 --> 00:31:45,160 And he's sort of, you know, and says, well, you know, you eat 477 00:31:45,160 --> 00:31:46,600 plenty while there are people starving. 478 00:31:46,600 --> 00:31:49,280 The only difference is is that you can't see them at the time, 479 00:31:49,720 --> 00:31:51,440 but it's effectively the same thing. 480 00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:55,640 Pat Hingle's Goes Goes to Christmas Present is even worse 481 00:31:55,640 --> 00:31:58,160 than Edward Woodward's. At least Edward Woodward's does 482 00:31:58,320 --> 00:32:03,120 show some merriment. Wasn't Edward Woodward? 483 00:32:03,480 --> 00:32:05,760 Wasn't his? His the same where you had those 484 00:32:05,760 --> 00:32:08,800 kids beneath his, beneath his. Yeah. 485 00:32:08,800 --> 00:32:10,840 Well, I mean, that's in the. Yeah, yeah. 486 00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:13,400 That's it's it's, it's interesting to see. 487 00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:18,120 This is why I'm obsessed with Chris Carroll, because as I said 488 00:32:18,120 --> 00:32:22,160 many years ago when we piloted Jaffa Kicks, it's full of 489 00:32:22,160 --> 00:32:27,160 knobbly bits, it's full of decisions to be taken and it's 490 00:32:27,160 --> 00:32:31,880 fascinating to see who takes what decision. 491 00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:34,680 Where do they go with it, what you know, how do they treat it? 492 00:32:35,480 --> 00:32:40,120 Because there's so much stuff that you can't do it in a normal 493 00:32:40,160 --> 00:32:43,560 90 to two hour, 90 minute to two hour film. 494 00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:49,400 So decisions must be taken. So yes, a lot of versions miss 495 00:32:49,400 --> 00:32:54,440 out ignorance and want. But Edward Woodward goes to a 496 00:32:54,440 --> 00:32:59,280 Christmas present, starts out quite merry, but he hates 497 00:32:59,280 --> 00:33:05,720 Scrooge. Displaced persons today more 498 00:33:05,720 --> 00:33:09,040 than 20 years. After a few of them still around 499 00:33:09,600 --> 00:33:15,440 the barbed wire set. How can you eat like this when 500 00:33:15,440 --> 00:33:17,120 you know that they're right there staring at you? 501 00:33:17,120 --> 00:33:19,320 Why? Not. 502 00:33:19,800 --> 00:33:22,160 Well, that takes a special breed to stuff himself in front of 503 00:33:22,160 --> 00:33:23,200 Star. Get the point there? 504 00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:24,280 Oh, boy. You really did. 505 00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:27,760 Well, it takes a special breed indeed. 506 00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:30,840 But you see, I don't happen to be a breed, Mr. Grudge. 507 00:33:31,560 --> 00:33:34,040 I'm a ghost. I don't have a heart. 508 00:33:34,040 --> 00:33:37,000 I don't have a soul. No nerve endings, no brain 509 00:33:37,000 --> 00:33:39,080 center. I'm just a reflection. 510 00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:41,240 But then, I've already told you that. 511 00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:46,000 Shall I now tell you how many times you've stuffed yourself 512 00:33:46,000 --> 00:33:48,840 while 2/3 of the world starved in a cage? 513 00:33:49,920 --> 00:33:54,360 Yeah, throw him a bone. Don't you talk to me like that. 514 00:33:54,880 --> 00:33:57,400 I have feelings. Nothing on this earth could 515 00:33:57,400 --> 00:33:59,440 force me to eat while starving people watch. 516 00:33:59,480 --> 00:34:01,400 Me watching makes all the difference. 517 00:34:01,400 --> 00:34:05,080 What, you never saw them while tearing into your mashed 518 00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:07,440 potatoes? They weren't actually there when 519 00:34:07,440 --> 00:34:12,080 you buttered your bread. That idea where he shows those 520 00:34:12,080 --> 00:34:16,719 displaced people and they're still singing a song that could 521 00:34:16,719 --> 00:34:21,400 have gone back to Dickens gone back to here are people keeping 522 00:34:21,400 --> 00:34:29,880 Christmas despite the privations, despite all of this. 523 00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:36,159 It it's he could have shown different sort of horrific 524 00:34:36,520 --> 00:34:40,520 quasi. It shone different places where 525 00:34:40,560 --> 00:34:45,760 the UN is needed because, well, I've said that Scrooge and 526 00:34:45,760 --> 00:34:47,120 grudge is sin. It's not that they don't like 527 00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:50,880 Christmas enough. Dick himself is making the point 528 00:34:50,880 --> 00:34:56,800 that Christmas is the ideal time to open up because as one of the 529 00:34:56,880 --> 00:35:00,000 charitable women is is 1 want is most keenly felt. 530 00:35:01,120 --> 00:35:05,800 There seems to be more need. It is the time to be more giving 531 00:35:06,760 --> 00:35:08,760 this. This is the perfect time to get 532 00:35:08,760 --> 00:35:13,120 your head out of the personal isolationism. 533 00:35:13,120 --> 00:35:18,880 But no, no, I I don't like that scene. 534 00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:23,680 With the message of this, if you didn't know this was a 535 00:35:23,680 --> 00:35:29,000 promotional piece for the UNI. Guess the underlying message of 536 00:35:29,000 --> 00:35:32,480 this film is isolationism and the and the disbanding of the UN 537 00:35:33,720 --> 00:35:37,240 is going to mean inevitable war. That's yes. 538 00:35:38,720 --> 00:35:40,960 And we say it's cold. I said it was like a Cold War 539 00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:47,520 Christmas Carol, how Vietnam was just beginning really around 540 00:35:47,520 --> 00:35:50,080 this time, wasn't it? It it was in its early stages. 541 00:35:50,600 --> 00:35:57,160 Yes, I think at the time this would have been made, it hadn't 542 00:35:57,160 --> 00:36:00,640 quite ramped up yet. It's come in the wake of JFK. 543 00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:03,800 But missile crisis, I think there's a lot of that in there. 544 00:36:03,800 --> 00:36:05,360 Yeah, that's right. That's right. 545 00:36:05,680 --> 00:36:08,800 Now I also when I when I started watching it, at first I wondered 546 00:36:08,800 --> 00:36:13,280 whether Grudge had been an old Mccarthyite back in the day. 547 00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:17,120 Well, at at the beginning, the reason Fred is coming is because 548 00:36:17,120 --> 00:36:24,480 Grudge has he has some sort of tie with a seat of learning and 549 00:36:24,720 --> 00:36:33,440 they've struck down a cultural exchange between a staff member 550 00:36:33,440 --> 00:36:39,640 at the college and a a similar person in Poland. 551 00:36:39,640 --> 00:36:42,120 So yes, there's that implication of paranoia. 552 00:36:44,800 --> 00:36:47,320 And that's Fred said that the the exchange they're doing is 553 00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:49,960 they're both students of 18th century poetry. 554 00:36:51,760 --> 00:36:56,200 So yeah, this is this is, it's not the main thrust of his 555 00:36:56,200 --> 00:36:58,520 problems, but yes, there's a certain element of Reds under 556 00:36:58,520 --> 00:37:02,840 the bed. And the other thing we watched a 557 00:37:02,840 --> 00:37:07,800 version which had a new or different opening titles, 558 00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:12,720 whereas you said you watched it on HBO Max, was it last night 559 00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:15,080 and and it was the original titles. 560 00:37:15,080 --> 00:37:16,360 What was? What was the reason for the 561 00:37:16,360 --> 00:37:19,080 change? It's something to do with the 562 00:37:20,320 --> 00:37:24,840 involvement of Henry Mancini, OK? 563 00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:27,880 Everybody who worked on this worked for scale, I think. 564 00:37:28,000 --> 00:37:30,680 I don't know if that's a contributing factor. 565 00:37:32,160 --> 00:37:36,960 Yeah, because Sellers was getting $350.00 a day for what, 566 00:37:36,960 --> 00:37:38,600 3 days work? Four days work. 567 00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:42,600 But again, you know, if if he hadn't had the heart attacks, 568 00:37:42,600 --> 00:37:45,360 I'm sure he would have he he wouldn't have attached himself 569 00:37:45,360 --> 00:37:47,040 to this project he may have done. 570 00:37:48,240 --> 00:37:51,760 It just, it just says I'm using Wikipedia. 571 00:37:51,760 --> 00:37:53,400 I'm sorry, everybody. That's all right. 572 00:37:53,400 --> 00:37:57,600 Until December 2021, the print used by TCM did not contain 573 00:37:57,600 --> 00:38:03,360 Mencini's theme. So it might well be because, 574 00:38:03,360 --> 00:38:06,880 because this was shown once, there were bootleg copies 575 00:38:06,880 --> 00:38:10,520 apparently circulating in the years after. 576 00:38:11,280 --> 00:38:15,440 But yes, it might well be that oh, some 60 millimetre prints 577 00:38:15,440 --> 00:38:19,960 were sold on the educational market so yeah, they might not 578 00:38:19,960 --> 00:38:26,080 have the original materials to hand for for some time. 579 00:38:26,640 --> 00:38:28,960 TCM have since restored the original theme. 580 00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:31,480 I can't say it made a massive impact on me. 581 00:38:32,000 --> 00:38:36,320 What bothered me more was that that the initial the print we 582 00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:43,440 first watched had clearly been assembled sometime in the 90s or 583 00:38:43,440 --> 00:38:47,680 something, because the the typeface didn't quite look 584 00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:50,840 right. It looked like it'd been keyed 585 00:38:50,840 --> 00:38:57,800 in rather than printed properly. And I care about these things. 586 00:38:58,760 --> 00:39:00,040 So you should. So you should. 587 00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:06,840 Detriment of all else. Apparently Serling was made to 588 00:39:06,880 --> 00:39:13,680 get rid of a number of howls and dams from the script because it 589 00:39:13,720 --> 00:39:14,600 was deemed. Inappropriate. 590 00:39:14,600 --> 00:39:16,120 You preserved them all up for the end. 591 00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:20,240 It was deemed inappropriate for for Christmas time. 592 00:39:21,680 --> 00:39:23,960 Oh please. So yeah, I mean, you can depict 593 00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:28,920 the aftermath of nuclear war. As long as nobody swears, that's 594 00:39:28,920 --> 00:39:31,160 fine. Yeah, like, come on then, let's 595 00:39:31,160 --> 00:39:32,960 get to it. Let's get to what? 596 00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:37,560 A good bit. Well, let's talk about. 597 00:39:37,560 --> 00:39:40,280 Let's talk about because this is, you know, This is why we're 598 00:39:40,280 --> 00:39:42,880 talking about this film. Let's talk about Sellers and his 599 00:39:42,880 --> 00:39:46,800 involvement before we start talking about his his role in 600 00:39:46,800 --> 00:39:51,560 the film specifically. So this was his first time on a 601 00:39:51,720 --> 00:39:57,560 on a set since Kissed Be Stupid. Now, it was actually filmed in 602 00:39:57,560 --> 00:40:01,360 Michael Myersburg Studios on Long Island, New York. 603 00:40:02,160 --> 00:40:04,640 And it's actually the same studios with Sellers had filmed 604 00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:08,560 The World of Henry Orient there about a year earlier. 605 00:40:09,760 --> 00:40:11,680 And apparently studio technicians he was. 606 00:40:11,720 --> 00:40:14,560 He was such a fun guy on set during that film that studio 607 00:40:14,560 --> 00:40:18,760 technicians hung up a big huge banner saying Welcome Home Hawk, 608 00:40:19,800 --> 00:40:22,920 because Hawk had been seller's nickname on the set. 609 00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:26,480 Apparently. Don't quite know why he Yeah, he 610 00:40:26,480 --> 00:40:28,440 flew out on the 10th of October with with Britt. 611 00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:30,400 Now, Britt's in the film as well, although she doesn't have 612 00:40:30,400 --> 00:40:33,320 very much to do, does she? No. 613 00:40:35,120 --> 00:40:39,400 As well, she's she's in the in the cast as, as a character's 614 00:40:39,440 --> 00:40:41,480 mother. They should, they should have, 615 00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:47,320 they should have cast Patrick Newell perhaps, but she's in it 616 00:40:47,560 --> 00:40:51,080 and she's only in it because really, I guess because Sellers 617 00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:53,600 insisted I'm, I'm assuming that's that's the reason. 618 00:40:55,840 --> 00:41:01,040 And he said in an interview that he, he, he acknowledged the fact 619 00:41:01,040 --> 00:41:04,680 that he'd been recuperating from these heart attacks. 620 00:41:05,240 --> 00:41:08,760 And he said that he felt that in, in the light of present day 621 00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:11,680 developments, we must continue to study subjects of the 622 00:41:11,680 --> 00:41:14,760 greatest responsibility to mankind and we shall always 623 00:41:14,760 --> 00:41:18,240 continue to do so. He said, I'm, I'm, I'm not yet 624 00:41:18,240 --> 00:41:20,840 back in stride, but I'm continuing to put 1 foot after 625 00:41:20,840 --> 00:41:23,440 the other. I'm sure everyone returning from 626 00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:24,960 a serious illness feels this way. 627 00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:27,720 But now that I'm back, I've learned that I'm having more fun 628 00:41:27,720 --> 00:41:30,920 than ever and I need no artificial stimulus like 629 00:41:30,920 --> 00:41:35,800 cigarettes. Is he giving up the ammo nitrate 630 00:41:35,800 --> 00:41:36,800 as well? Because that's. 631 00:41:37,000 --> 00:41:39,960 Yeah. Yeah, that's what put him in 632 00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:45,280 this position. And he said he he plans to going 633 00:41:45,280 --> 00:41:47,840 forward in his career, he plans to surround himself with gay, 634 00:41:47,840 --> 00:41:51,560 smiling, happy people. And so he decided to make this 635 00:41:51,560 --> 00:41:57,320 film. Now folks, the first Adam, on 636 00:41:57,840 --> 00:42:03,480 today's agenda is this business. If the people from down Yonder 637 00:42:03,480 --> 00:42:09,080 and the people from Cross River wanted to come in here and talk 638 00:42:09,560 --> 00:42:17,240 about what they call our mutual problems, our common 639 00:42:17,240 --> 00:42:26,520 differences, now they want to talk, talk, talk, talk, talk 640 00:42:27,480 --> 00:42:30,800 about our problems. They want to debate, debate, 641 00:42:30,920 --> 00:42:40,240 debate about solutions until somehow they get their problems 642 00:42:40,240 --> 00:42:44,560 solved. They want to waste our time. 643 00:42:45,000 --> 00:42:49,120 They want us to commit ourselves to that kind of surrender. 644 00:42:52,440 --> 00:42:57,360 Whenever you see any reference to or any any sort of visual 645 00:42:57,360 --> 00:42:59,920 reference to this film is always his character, isn't it? 646 00:43:01,200 --> 00:43:03,280 Because it's. It's the picture. 647 00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:06,120 I think it's the thumbnail on the HBO Max copy. 648 00:43:06,200 --> 00:43:13,080 Yes, and his character is called the is called Imperial me who's 649 00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:17,240 kind of a, is it like an Iron Rand type individualist? 650 00:43:17,840 --> 00:43:19,640 I think he's even beyond that, isn't he? 651 00:43:19,640 --> 00:43:26,800 It's just the idea of solipsism taken to its beyond its logical 652 00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:28,800 conclusion. Yeah, yeah. 653 00:43:28,840 --> 00:43:31,520 He's he's, he's, he's dressed in cowboy boots. 654 00:43:31,520 --> 00:43:35,000 He's got a 2 gunned holster. He's he's he's wearing the the 655 00:43:35,000 --> 00:43:37,160 top of a Santa suit trimmed with white fur. 656 00:43:37,160 --> 00:43:42,280 He's got a 10 gallon hat cut to resemble a crown with jewels, 657 00:43:42,280 --> 00:43:46,360 studying the points of the coronet and the word me Emmy 658 00:43:46,360 --> 00:43:48,320 spelled out in sparky gold sequence. 659 00:43:48,920 --> 00:43:51,640 So very, very striking looking outfit. 660 00:43:53,000 --> 00:43:57,600 Before we get to that, Danielle Grudge has to talk to the Ghost 661 00:43:57,600 --> 00:44:02,080 of Christmas Yet to come back and forth over the same points 662 00:44:02,080 --> 00:44:04,680 because yes, I think actually he's even built his Ghost of 663 00:44:04,680 --> 00:44:07,480 Christmas future, which is one of the things that gets he's 664 00:44:07,520 --> 00:44:13,160 talking. It's like, no, I always think 665 00:44:13,160 --> 00:44:16,400 it's kind of, you know, if, if you have to like give the Ghost 666 00:44:16,400 --> 00:44:19,120 of Christmas yet to come dialogue, you've kind of failed. 667 00:44:19,880 --> 00:44:21,920 Yeah, but it's Robert Shaw. You can't have Robert Shaw 668 00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:26,360 saying nothing, can you? No, I'm going to say in this 669 00:44:26,360 --> 00:44:29,080 it's it's like, no, we've we've had the talking. 670 00:44:31,560 --> 00:44:35,720 I'm just wondering how Serling felt about writing this because 671 00:44:35,720 --> 00:44:40,160 you almost feel that he's, even though it's still dark and 672 00:44:40,160 --> 00:44:43,480 serious, he's almost a sense of him being at play. 673 00:44:46,120 --> 00:44:51,000 And Sellers takes any humorous element gallows humour, but he 674 00:44:51,000 --> 00:44:53,800 still he takes the humorous elements and runs with them the 675 00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:58,120 the gestures he's making. He's he's got a tin can gavel, 676 00:44:58,120 --> 00:45:01,120 hasn't he? Giant economy size, Yes. 677 00:45:01,120 --> 00:45:04,120 He's got like a broom handle stuck through an old tin can, 678 00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:05,560 and that's his gavel. That's it. 679 00:45:08,080 --> 00:45:13,080 We get girls screaming at him. Beatles illusion there. 680 00:45:13,960 --> 00:45:17,240 I do I do wonder if certainly it's being a bit foggyish about 681 00:45:17,240 --> 00:45:20,200 The Beatles or just, or just thinking this, this looks 682 00:45:20,200 --> 00:45:21,760 disturbing in a different context. 683 00:45:23,480 --> 00:45:27,960 Grudge mentions that this is the town hall of the town he's in 684 00:45:30,000 --> 00:45:32,360 because that's apparently necessary. 685 00:45:32,520 --> 00:45:37,200 Again, one of the ideas that goes round and around is talking 686 00:45:37,200 --> 00:45:42,320 is better than fighting. And so in this does that mention 687 00:45:42,320 --> 00:45:46,080 about, you know, the people stop talking there, there's an 688 00:45:46,080 --> 00:45:49,120 allusion to effectively the UN stopping existing. 689 00:45:49,440 --> 00:45:54,720 There's also an interesting bit sort of alluding to because this 690 00:45:54,720 --> 00:45:57,160 this is after an atomic nuclear war. 691 00:45:58,160 --> 00:46:02,800 Christmas yet to come says somebody says something that 692 00:46:02,800 --> 00:46:05,200 somebody thought somebody dropped some bombs. 693 00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:12,240 And I don't know, that kind of reminded me of Doctor 694 00:46:12,240 --> 00:46:15,320 Strangelove. It's slightly different that 695 00:46:15,320 --> 00:46:18,840 somebody does, but it's that whole thing of it's not like 696 00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:23,680 it's just, it's the paranoia that causes the war. 697 00:46:24,520 --> 00:46:27,320 A bit like it was really paranoia that caused the First 698 00:46:27,320 --> 00:46:27,960 World War. I'm. 699 00:46:29,920 --> 00:46:34,280 Just you've got me thinking now, I'm just wondering if you strip 700 00:46:34,280 --> 00:46:37,280 out the Christmas Carol element, the ghost element and all that, 701 00:46:38,480 --> 00:46:43,880 could the seller sequence be potentially a a mini sequel to 702 00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:50,600 Talk Strangelove? That's that's a thought, yes. 703 00:46:51,480 --> 00:46:56,760 Because wasn't sellers was meant to play Major Kong Kong in the 704 00:46:56,760 --> 00:46:59,360 in the in the hat, wasn't he? Yes. 705 00:46:59,360 --> 00:47:03,000 Yes. Have you watched all of The 706 00:47:03,000 --> 00:47:06,560 Prisoner? Yeah, with you, right, OK. 707 00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:09,040 Do you remember much of the last episode? 708 00:47:10,400 --> 00:47:14,840 Well, it's very odd and there's all you need is love there's. 709 00:47:14,840 --> 00:47:22,280 A sequence that and I don't think I don't somebody out there 710 00:47:22,280 --> 00:47:25,440 might know whether Patrick Mcgood might just have happened 711 00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:29,120 to have been in front of a television in the US on the 28th 712 00:47:29,160 --> 00:47:33,160 of December or whether indeed Calvin or the Christmas did get 713 00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:40,840 any obviously showing. There is a segment where #6 by 714 00:47:40,840 --> 00:47:42,480 this point, of course, he's no longer number six. 715 00:47:42,480 --> 00:47:51,000 He's Sir is standing at a podium with a gavel and he slams the 716 00:47:51,000 --> 00:47:55,520 gavel down to get silence. And he says, I feel this. 717 00:47:55,520 --> 00:47:58,560 And then the people behind him. I'll go. 718 00:47:58,600 --> 00:48:02,080 Aye, aye, aye. Slams the gavel. 719 00:48:02,800 --> 00:48:05,560 Tries to talk again. Aye, aye, aye. 720 00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:10,640 I I I I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I. This becomes a whole thing. 721 00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:23,440 I. I feel. 722 00:48:30,240 --> 00:48:36,600 I feel. And it's fascinating watching 723 00:48:36,600 --> 00:48:38,360 this. So is this on his podium? 724 00:48:38,360 --> 00:48:41,160 He's got his gavel and everybody's going me, me, me, 725 00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:52,240 me, me, me. I think it's just a coincidence. 726 00:48:52,920 --> 00:48:57,480 Maybe it's just some of the ideas that are floating around 727 00:48:57,480 --> 00:49:02,240 in the 60's, the concept of individualism gone too far or 728 00:49:02,240 --> 00:49:04,720 individuality become individualism. 729 00:49:05,720 --> 00:49:09,520 But yeah, this, this gets to be a proper dystopian. 730 00:49:11,080 --> 00:49:14,560 You could almost like if, if there was just some way you 731 00:49:14,560 --> 00:49:17,320 could just slice this off separately, you could turn this 732 00:49:17,320 --> 00:49:21,680 into an out of the unknown. You've, we've watched some of 733 00:49:21,680 --> 00:49:22,680 those, haven't we? Yeah, yeah. 734 00:49:25,720 --> 00:49:29,160 Basically, the seller's character is advocating the 735 00:49:29,160 --> 00:49:33,240 killing of everyone until all that remains is himself. 736 00:49:33,880 --> 00:49:38,280 Yeah, or a self. Or a self, one individual, me 737 00:49:38,960 --> 00:49:42,200 with a capital M Yeah, you said that. 738 00:49:42,200 --> 00:49:45,120 This this reminded this sequence reminded you of Beneath the 739 00:49:45,120 --> 00:49:47,240 Planet of the Apes when we watched it. 740 00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:52,160 Oh yes, just spoilers for Beneath the Planet of the Apes, 741 00:49:52,160 --> 00:49:58,240 but there's a whole sequence involving a bunch of people who 742 00:49:58,240 --> 00:50:00,560 worship an unexploded nuclear bomb. 743 00:50:01,560 --> 00:50:04,560 Right. And they sing strange little 744 00:50:05,080 --> 00:50:07,680 it's the sort of thing a version of how old things bright and 745 00:50:07,680 --> 00:50:10,160 beautiful. But it ends with the good bomb 746 00:50:10,160 --> 00:50:15,080 made them all right. Serving was involved in the 747 00:50:15,080 --> 00:50:18,640 original planet. The it's interesting the the the 748 00:50:18,640 --> 00:50:21,080 ending of Planet of the apes the film. 749 00:50:21,120 --> 00:50:24,720 Yeah, yeah. Is servings ending in a way, but 750 00:50:24,760 --> 00:50:30,040 in a way it isn't serving. Used to complain that people 751 00:50:30,040 --> 00:50:32,680 come up to him with ideas and say, you know, we can split it. 752 00:50:32,680 --> 00:50:37,440 5050. So she always said having the 753 00:50:37,440 --> 00:50:42,680 idea is not 50% of the work. But once someone came, a woman 754 00:50:42,680 --> 00:50:44,840 who came up to her party and says, I've got a good idea, all 755 00:50:45,880 --> 00:50:50,040 right. And it's like a bunch of guys 756 00:50:50,160 --> 00:50:55,160 land on another planet and they do harm to each other, blah, 757 00:50:55,160 --> 00:50:57,080 blah, blah. And then it turns out they 758 00:50:57,080 --> 00:50:58,840 actually just crashed a few miles away. 759 00:51:00,720 --> 00:51:02,840 And that is, and Sterling was like, basically, I write, OK, 760 00:51:02,840 --> 00:51:04,040 I'm going to write you a cheque for that. 761 00:51:05,040 --> 00:51:07,560 That's brilliant. And it becomes there's a 762 00:51:07,560 --> 00:51:10,080 Twilight Zone where I don't know if they think they've landed on 763 00:51:10,080 --> 00:51:13,600 an asteroid or something, but it's there's a Twilight zone 764 00:51:13,600 --> 00:51:17,920 with that ending and certainly carries that ending with him 765 00:51:17,920 --> 00:51:22,000 because he worked on some early versions of the script of Planet 766 00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:24,280 of the Apes. OK. 767 00:51:25,120 --> 00:51:26,680 You know, Rod certainly was only 54. 768 00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:30,640 There's. Nothing wrong with that. 769 00:51:32,240 --> 00:51:35,200 But it's it's you don't, you don't get that sense from those 770 00:51:35,200 --> 00:51:39,480 Twilight Zone intras. Oh, I guess not standing on a 771 00:51:39,480 --> 00:51:43,680 box maybe. There's one where it's the the 772 00:51:43,680 --> 00:51:47,880 the whole thing starts in a bar and instead of walking on, it 773 00:51:47,880 --> 00:51:50,400 just cuts to certain things, just like sitting down. 774 00:51:51,400 --> 00:51:52,960 And he's 'cause he got a sig on the go. 775 00:51:53,680 --> 00:51:55,400 It just looks like he's a butterfly there. 776 00:51:55,400 --> 00:52:00,080 He's just like, what? All right, is this a story as 777 00:52:00,080 --> 00:52:00,840 well? Oh, sorry. 778 00:52:00,920 --> 00:52:05,960 OK. To the best of our knowledge, we 779 00:52:05,960 --> 00:52:11,360 are all of humanity who remain alive, all that's left, and we 780 00:52:11,360 --> 00:52:14,480 have survived the Holocaust. And if we are to go on 781 00:52:14,480 --> 00:52:16,240 surviving, we must work together now. 782 00:52:17,160 --> 00:52:20,760 We must talk together. And if other people want to join 783 00:52:20,760 --> 00:52:23,440 us, if they want to talk with us, we we must listen to them 784 00:52:27,960 --> 00:52:34,840 and we must respond to them. Charles, Who's his grudges? 785 00:52:34,840 --> 00:52:38,080 Butler, or. Yes, indeed. 786 00:52:39,000 --> 00:52:41,120 Manservant, I don't know what to call him really. 787 00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:43,600 He doesn't have anything to do really at the beginning of the 788 00:52:43,600 --> 00:52:48,360 film other than keep asking Grudge if he's OK because he 789 00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:50,560 keeps hearing the Andrew sisters, which must have been 790 00:52:50,560 --> 00:52:55,360 hell. Andrew sisters playing on the on 791 00:52:55,360 --> 00:52:57,600 the on the record. Player We we. 792 00:52:57,600 --> 00:52:59,200 It wasn't just you and me watching this. 793 00:52:59,200 --> 00:53:02,880 Watch this with Andrew from History of Rocky Music in 500 794 00:53:02,880 --> 00:53:07,800 songs. And I really annoyed him, which 795 00:53:07,800 --> 00:53:11,400 was which was my goal because so there's this bit where he's 796 00:53:11,400 --> 00:53:14,360 having right at the beginning, he's having this argument with 797 00:53:14,640 --> 00:53:16,880 Fred about. And he said I've had enough of 798 00:53:16,880 --> 00:53:21,000 the brotherhood of man. And I said I thought he was 799 00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:26,760 listening to the Andrew sisters and got groan of agony at the 800 00:53:26,760 --> 00:53:29,080 joke. So mission accomplished then. 801 00:53:30,040 --> 00:53:33,120 I still don't get it. You're not. 802 00:53:33,120 --> 00:53:34,720 You're pretending to be too young to have heard of the 803 00:53:34,720 --> 00:53:35,720 brotherhood of Man, isn't that it? 804 00:53:38,200 --> 00:53:39,880 But no Charles, the oldest of all of us. 805 00:53:40,120 --> 00:53:42,840 Charles Charles comes back. Yes. 806 00:53:44,640 --> 00:53:48,320 And again, I think this, this is Sterling. 807 00:53:50,280 --> 00:53:52,280 I know that's what extent Sterling would have been aware 808 00:53:52,280 --> 00:53:56,440 of the casting all this, but you're having the last rational 809 00:53:56,440 --> 00:54:02,520 man on earth being African American is the kind of thing I 810 00:54:02,520 --> 00:54:06,440 think Sterling would have specifically asked for because 811 00:54:06,440 --> 00:54:16,320 he was an early booster for racial equity in in his work. 812 00:54:17,080 --> 00:54:18,920 It doesn't go too well for Charles. 813 00:54:18,920 --> 00:54:23,200 It doesn't does it and and in fact a a 10 year old boy shoots 814 00:54:23,200 --> 00:54:28,560 him down. Yes, because the mother played 815 00:54:28,560 --> 00:54:32,400 by Britt Eklund has this little boxing just like daddy's and 816 00:54:32,680 --> 00:54:35,640 opens up. And yes, there's a loaded gun 817 00:54:35,920 --> 00:54:40,000 and that kid must have fired it many times before because 818 00:54:41,120 --> 00:54:44,080 otherwise 10 year old kid, you'd think the recoil would have 819 00:54:44,680 --> 00:54:46,800 pushed him over Yonder across river. 820 00:54:48,720 --> 00:54:51,920 You know when Salas enters by the way his character enters at 821 00:54:51,920 --> 00:54:56,440 the beginning of this sequence and he's he's born by. 822 00:54:56,440 --> 00:54:58,880 Beats as it sweeps, as it cleans. 823 00:54:59,360 --> 00:55:03,400 Yeah, he's born by football players, isn't he, who are each 824 00:55:04,800 --> 00:55:07,800 each shouldering parallel bars with a barrel in the centre and 825 00:55:07,800 --> 00:55:11,280 a saddle across it. And apparently Sellers was 826 00:55:11,280 --> 00:55:14,640 improvising he how to. So essentially this was meant to 827 00:55:14,640 --> 00:55:18,720 be like his his steed, if you like. 828 00:55:19,360 --> 00:55:23,360 And he was improvising with how to get them to start moving or 829 00:55:23,360 --> 00:55:25,600 walking. And he tried all sorts of 830 00:55:25,600 --> 00:55:28,400 different things, like shouting words and all, all the rest of 831 00:55:28,400 --> 00:55:30,520 it. In the end he decided that he 832 00:55:30,520 --> 00:55:32,760 would just kick the head of one of the football players in the 833 00:55:32,760 --> 00:55:38,640 front. Yes, which is very sellers I 834 00:55:38,640 --> 00:55:42,040 think. And the music's got that. 835 00:55:42,360 --> 00:55:45,920 It's like a kazoo type thing. I don't know the name of the 836 00:55:45,920 --> 00:55:48,680 original piece, but I know it as it beats, as it sweeps, as it 837 00:55:48,680 --> 00:55:51,520 cleans. Because it was used for a carpet 838 00:55:51,520 --> 00:55:52,840 cleaner advert. Yeah. 839 00:55:53,880 --> 00:55:58,480 So the journey that grudge has been on, like, like you say, he 840 00:55:58,480 --> 00:56:02,400 starts out bitter and he and he's isolationist, but he does 841 00:56:02,400 --> 00:56:07,040 go on a kind of a journey in terms of his his world view, 842 00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:12,080 shall we say. Well, he ends up enjoying 843 00:56:12,080 --> 00:56:16,520 listening to Christmas carols and deciding to have his his 844 00:56:16,520 --> 00:56:22,600 morning cup of coffee in the kitchen with the staff, Which I 845 00:56:22,600 --> 00:56:25,000 thought was, you know, maybe not the happy ending. 846 00:56:25,520 --> 00:56:29,360 No. Thinking Charles and I don't 847 00:56:29,360 --> 00:56:31,280 know, Is that meant to be Mrs. Yeah, Ruby. 848 00:56:31,280 --> 00:56:34,440 Yeah. I just got this image that 849 00:56:35,120 --> 00:56:38,800 Charles looks at Ruby going. This is the only room in this 850 00:56:38,800 --> 00:56:41,720 entire building where we can talk about what a thundering 851 00:56:41,720 --> 00:56:45,080 pillar car boss is. And now he's taken that away 852 00:56:45,080 --> 00:56:45,640 from us. Yeah. 853 00:56:46,640 --> 00:56:49,200 Doesn't even give them the day off for Christmas Day. 854 00:56:49,720 --> 00:56:51,160 He doesn't even ask him, you know, sit. 855 00:56:51,160 --> 00:56:55,280 Down, you know, put yourself. You know, no, that'll be just he 856 00:56:55,280 --> 00:56:59,400 has his coffee, OK? He does have a sort of a little 857 00:56:59,400 --> 00:57:03,760 speech with Fred that indicates a change of heart. 858 00:57:07,160 --> 00:57:11,280 I've been giving things some thought, some some second 859 00:57:11,360 --> 00:57:12,880 thoughts. Oh. 860 00:57:13,600 --> 00:57:16,360 Any conclusions? No. 861 00:57:16,360 --> 00:57:18,920 Maybe an observation or two for instance. 862 00:57:20,880 --> 00:57:26,280 For instance, the old one. But now by now that no man, as 863 00:57:26,280 --> 00:57:35,480 the poet says, is an island. Seems the conclusion is 864 00:57:35,480 --> 00:57:38,920 inevitable. There must be involvement. 865 00:57:41,280 --> 00:57:43,920 Every man's death does diminish me. 866 00:57:47,240 --> 00:57:49,720 It appears we've run out of the luxury of alternatives, Fred. 867 00:57:51,840 --> 00:57:56,800 We find ourselves living in a world which we either greet the 868 00:57:56,800 --> 00:58:05,520 morning or accept the night. So I wish you a Merry Christmas, 869 00:58:05,520 --> 00:58:12,360 Fred, and a good morning. Merry Christmas, uncle. 870 00:58:13,680 --> 00:58:16,760 I mean I'm I'm not fan of versions where Scrooge just 871 00:58:16,760 --> 00:58:24,080 becomes a giggling idiot who bankrupts himself, like the 872 00:58:24,080 --> 00:58:27,280 Albert Finney version where he just seems to buy everybody in 873 00:58:27,280 --> 00:58:29,720 London everything they want. Well, Michael Caine. 874 00:58:29,720 --> 00:58:31,400 Didn't Michael Caine get a bit giddy? 875 00:58:32,800 --> 00:58:34,400 The Muppets won. Michael Caine made it 876 00:58:34,400 --> 00:58:37,840 convincing. I mean, George C Scott plays 877 00:58:37,920 --> 00:58:41,840 plays Reform Scrooge. Well, he he does, he does act a 878 00:58:41,840 --> 00:58:43,960 bit giddy. But then afterwards, he sort of 879 00:58:43,960 --> 00:58:46,480 plays reform Scrooge as a man who's had a weight lifted off 880 00:58:46,480 --> 00:58:46,760 him. Yeah. 881 00:58:48,200 --> 00:58:51,720 Yeah, but Grudge Grudge is just slightly less of an asshole. 882 00:58:51,920 --> 00:58:55,800 Or asshole really isn't. He I think maybe it's because 883 00:58:57,200 --> 00:59:02,000 the solution to that particular problem rests with the audience 884 00:59:02,000 --> 00:59:04,040 as much as it does with the character. 885 00:59:05,920 --> 00:59:10,400 It's like it's not just, it's not just one man, but for the UN 886 00:59:10,400 --> 00:59:16,240 to work we need society as a whole to be in favour of talking 887 00:59:16,240 --> 00:59:20,840 instead of fighting. Doesn't really come across 888 00:59:20,840 --> 00:59:23,760 though, does it? No, it's kind of. 889 00:59:23,840 --> 00:59:26,280 I wrote on my notes when we were watching it, right at the end. 890 00:59:26,280 --> 00:59:33,080 I wrote United Nations Colon. Good question mark then 891 00:59:33,360 --> 00:59:36,680 possibly. I mean, I think it's good, don't 892 00:59:37,040 --> 00:59:37,920 get me wrong. It's just. 893 00:59:38,160 --> 00:59:41,640 So we should have like taken a sip of coffee, broken the 4th 894 00:59:41,640 --> 00:59:44,480 wall and gone United Nations. Good. 895 00:59:47,000 --> 00:59:49,880 Maybe another big question mark could have zoomed out from the 896 00:59:49,880 --> 00:59:55,560 middle of the screen. I'm just looking at other things 897 00:59:55,560 --> 00:59:57,800 I, I made notes of that we haven't touched on. 898 00:59:57,800 --> 00:59:59,120 I think. I think we've kind of touched on 899 00:59:59,120 --> 01:00:02,520 most things I wanted. I mean Robert Shaw, though, I do 900 01:00:02,520 --> 01:00:05,200 like Robert Shaw. I know you weren't happy with 901 01:00:05,200 --> 01:00:11,400 the fact he had to speak or he did speak, but he was good 902 01:00:11,400 --> 01:00:15,640 casting, I think, for that role. There was a little bit where he 903 01:00:15,640 --> 01:00:18,760 kind of reminded me of Donald Pleasance, and then I thought, I 904 01:00:18,760 --> 01:00:20,160 wish this was Donald Pleasance. Oh. 905 01:00:21,040 --> 01:00:22,240 He'd have been good, wouldn't he? 906 01:00:23,280 --> 01:00:24,560 Yeah. Yeah. 907 01:00:25,600 --> 01:00:28,480 He he would have even been good as a silent one because he's got 908 01:00:28,480 --> 01:00:32,680 that, you know those. Those eyes. 909 01:00:34,280 --> 01:00:36,280 Can Donald Pleasance be silent, though? 910 01:00:36,280 --> 01:00:40,000 He's just. I think I think he could do a 911 01:00:40,000 --> 01:00:43,360 performance silent and still get something out of it. 912 01:00:44,360 --> 01:00:47,880 I suppose so. You know those those weird 913 01:00:47,880 --> 01:00:53,040 little round round eyes of his and a little smirk? 914 01:00:55,960 --> 01:00:58,680 Except when he gets angry because the wine is caught. 915 01:00:58,960 --> 01:01:02,400 Liquid filth. Columbo reference listeners. 916 01:01:03,280 --> 01:01:08,040 There was a few nice lines. I like the fact that when he's 917 01:01:08,040 --> 01:01:14,360 on the boat with Ghost of Christmas Past, Ghost of 918 01:01:14,360 --> 01:01:16,880 Christmas Past says if you don't want to get involved, you've got 919 01:01:16,880 --> 01:01:21,640 to give back the 20th century. I will give that the ghost of 920 01:01:21,640 --> 01:01:26,200 Christmas Present does talk about the present effectively in 921 01:01:26,200 --> 01:01:29,800 the terms of this is happening now, these people behind this 922 01:01:29,800 --> 01:01:34,280 barbed way. It might look like something, 923 01:01:34,560 --> 01:01:36,880 you know, immediately post Second World War. 924 01:01:37,080 --> 01:01:40,640 It might look like some of the stuff that happened back in the 925 01:01:40,640 --> 01:01:43,520 bad old days. It's happening now. 926 01:01:44,080 --> 01:01:49,080 He does make that clear. Yeah, and off the cast. 927 01:01:49,720 --> 01:01:53,480 Britt Eckland's still with us, of course, but she's not the 928 01:01:53,480 --> 01:01:59,120 only one. Is she weighing it at at 101 929 01:01:59,120 --> 01:02:01,800 years old? Oh. 930 01:02:02,760 --> 01:02:06,680 Even Marie St. Yes, who? 931 01:02:06,960 --> 01:02:11,000 Who's in the Hiroshima sequence with with? 932 01:02:11,000 --> 01:02:14,800 What's his name with Grudge? And Jeb Chigato, we didn't 933 01:02:14,800 --> 01:02:19,120 mention that he plays a doctor. Yeah, Now he was a, he was an 934 01:02:19,120 --> 01:02:20,720 American Japanese actor, wasn't he? 935 01:02:22,160 --> 01:02:26,400 But I from, from a little bit of research, he was. 936 01:02:26,400 --> 01:02:28,840 He actually was, although he didn't speak Japanese, or at 937 01:02:28,840 --> 01:02:31,760 least he had to learn Japanese when he went to Japan. 938 01:02:32,200 --> 01:02:36,200 He was quite a big star in Japan but never really made it in 939 01:02:36,200 --> 01:02:40,520 America, which surprises me. Yeah, I just, I guess it just 940 01:02:40,520 --> 01:02:48,080 wasn't the I mean, I don't know what's his was his biggest role 941 01:02:48,080 --> 01:02:53,480 in the US was that flower drum song, which can be seen as very 942 01:02:53,480 --> 01:02:58,600 problematic. It's still bad. 943 01:02:59,000 --> 01:03:03,280 He's totally, he's everybody who who's in it is fantastic. 944 01:03:03,880 --> 01:03:04,760 Which is that? Sorry. 945 01:03:06,040 --> 01:03:08,320 Flower Drum song. Flower Drum song. 946 01:03:10,240 --> 01:03:12,400 Yeah, it's a Rodgers and Hammerstein musical. 947 01:03:13,760 --> 01:03:17,120 It's about Chinese immigrants, but also people who are Chinese 948 01:03:17,120 --> 01:03:21,920 Americans, who are, you know, both they are Chinese Americans. 949 01:03:22,880 --> 01:03:26,280 And it's now seen as a bit retrograde. 950 01:03:27,120 --> 01:03:30,640 Or is it a bit one of our dinosaurs is missing in? 951 01:03:30,840 --> 01:03:36,040 No, there's, there's, there's only, there's only one case of 952 01:03:36,160 --> 01:03:40,800 of yellow face in the film. That's Juanita Hall, of course, 953 01:03:40,800 --> 01:03:43,880 was in South Pacific. Right, of course. 954 01:03:44,000 --> 01:03:47,080 But no, in in your cast, you you've got Jim Shigata, You've 955 01:03:47,080 --> 01:03:52,280 got Jack SU from Barney Miller. Absolutely. 956 01:03:52,280 --> 01:03:54,000 Yeah. And he's he's hilarious in it. 957 01:03:54,000 --> 01:03:54,880 Yeah. Yeah. 958 01:03:55,520 --> 01:03:59,880 And Nancy Kwan. Oh go on, who's she? 959 01:03:59,880 --> 01:04:02,000 Now that name rings a bell. What do I know who her from? 960 01:04:05,200 --> 01:04:10,800 She, I don't know, again, famous, most famous film. 961 01:04:10,800 --> 01:04:13,600 I I don't want to say the world of Susie Wong, but I've got a 962 01:04:13,600 --> 01:04:14,960 feeling it's the world of Susie Wong. 963 01:04:15,640 --> 01:04:21,720 She's a Hong Kong actress, OK. She's in a film called The Wild 964 01:04:21,720 --> 01:04:26,720 Affair, which is notable for two things. 965 01:04:26,720 --> 01:04:30,280 One, her parents are white and there's no reference near to it. 966 01:04:32,160 --> 01:04:37,000 Right, OK. So OK and also Terry Thomas is 967 01:04:37,000 --> 01:04:39,360 in it without his moustache. Good Lord. 968 01:04:40,160 --> 01:04:43,880 Indeed, Yes, yeah, it's it's an alarming thing to see. 969 01:04:46,200 --> 01:04:53,520 But again, I think Nancy Quinn suffered from the lack of meaty 970 01:04:53,520 --> 01:04:59,480 roles for for Southeast Asian actresses at the time. 971 01:05:00,840 --> 01:05:03,480 She didn't get to be in an episode of Hadley with Gerald 972 01:05:03,480 --> 01:05:07,320 Harper, so Oh well, she said, you know, so she got to work for 973 01:05:07,320 --> 01:05:09,760 Yorkshire Television like all the best people. 974 01:05:14,360 --> 01:05:19,800 So this film, heart warming, uplifting as it is, of course it 975 01:05:19,800 --> 01:05:22,160 goes out, doesn't it? Of course it goes out on on 976 01:05:22,160 --> 01:05:25,480 Christmas Day 1964, doesn't it tilt? 977 01:05:26,800 --> 01:05:30,120 28th, 28th, 28th, yeah. It could. 978 01:05:30,440 --> 01:05:32,640 Could you imagine if it had gone out on Christmas Day? 979 01:05:35,400 --> 01:05:41,600 I still think it would have been less of a downer than Royal 980 01:05:41,600 --> 01:05:43,560 Flush. The Oracles and Horses, The 981 01:05:43,560 --> 01:05:46,960 original edits of the On Fools and Horses Christmas special, 982 01:05:49,960 --> 01:05:55,320 which ends with Del Boy breaking Rodney's hand. 983 01:05:56,760 --> 01:05:59,800 Well, that'll do me, Rodney. Put it there. 984 01:06:01,480 --> 01:06:03,080 Now what are you? What are you? 985 01:06:03,080 --> 01:06:05,440 Hey, hey. But yeah, it's so it wasn't, it 986 01:06:05,440 --> 01:06:07,800 wasn't shown again. So it was broadcast on the 28th 987 01:06:07,800 --> 01:06:10,800 of December 64. It wasn't shown again 48 for 48 988 01:06:10,800 --> 01:06:14,560 years, as I said before, and now it's become something of a 989 01:06:14,560 --> 01:06:17,560 fixture on TCM. Yes. 990 01:06:18,240 --> 01:06:20,880 Bit of a a cult favorite I suppose. 991 01:06:20,880 --> 01:06:24,600 I hate to refer to it as that, but it's an interesting film. 992 01:06:24,800 --> 01:06:28,120 It's interesting, yeah. It it is worth your time. 993 01:06:28,600 --> 01:06:34,960 Just don't expect it to go well with the box of Quality St. 994 01:06:35,720 --> 01:06:39,440 Now. And you know, a glass of bear 995 01:06:39,440 --> 01:06:41,400 lease. One thing I forgot to mention, 996 01:06:41,400 --> 01:06:43,040 it's not important, but I'll mention it. 997 01:06:43,680 --> 01:06:48,160 Filming had to be shut down for a day after Sterling Hayden hit 998 01:06:48,160 --> 01:06:53,000 his head on a tree branch. And he was apparently he was 999 01:06:53,520 --> 01:06:56,720 using the the vernacular of the newspapers at the time. 1000 01:06:56,920 --> 01:07:01,520 He was romping with his children somewhere and he hit his head on 1001 01:07:01,520 --> 01:07:05,360 a tree branch and the mark it left on his head, they were 1002 01:07:05,360 --> 01:07:08,360 unable to successfully cover it with make up. 1003 01:07:08,360 --> 01:07:10,560 So they had to leave it for they had to close their production 1004 01:07:10,560 --> 01:07:14,400 for a day. I thought it was going to be 1005 01:07:14,400 --> 01:07:17,080 like you. You've heard of the show Ace of 1006 01:07:17,080 --> 01:07:18,560 Wands? I've heard of it, yes. 1007 01:07:19,400 --> 01:07:24,800 Yeah, they were once shooting with a snake and the snake did a 1008 01:07:24,920 --> 01:07:30,400 colossal dump and the smell was so bad I think we had to abandon 1009 01:07:30,760 --> 01:07:32,600 shooting for the day and open the scene every day. 1010 01:07:36,440 --> 01:07:42,320 Now, can I just say I wasn't expecting this, this show to end 1011 01:07:42,320 --> 01:07:45,280 on on the defecation habits of snakes. 1012 01:07:45,960 --> 01:07:48,160 It had never even occurred to me that snakes would do such a 1013 01:07:48,160 --> 01:07:49,760 thing. But obviously they must. 1014 01:07:49,760 --> 01:07:52,400 Do they? Didn't do it deliberately, no. 1015 01:07:53,240 --> 01:07:55,560 No, but what I mean is. I'm just confused to me that he 1016 01:07:55,560 --> 01:07:58,920 would do such a thing. He's Teddington of all places. 1017 01:07:59,680 --> 01:08:00,920 No respect. It's. 1018 01:08:04,320 --> 01:08:07,960 Just it's just something I never thought snakes would do, but I 1019 01:08:07,960 --> 01:08:11,640 guess like all living creatures, they've got to expel it somehow. 1020 01:08:11,760 --> 01:08:14,040 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Poor old. 1021 01:08:14,400 --> 01:08:15,960 What did Roy Holder have to say about it? 1022 01:08:18,240 --> 01:08:19,800 Wasn't Ian Ace I. Don't know if it was. 1023 01:08:19,840 --> 01:08:21,319 I don't know if it was. He was in. 1024 01:08:21,359 --> 01:08:23,160 He was in the third series. I don't know if it was Roy 1025 01:08:23,160 --> 01:08:27,040 Holder or Tony Selby. I can't remember which series it 1026 01:08:27,040 --> 01:08:28,439 was. There you go. 1027 01:08:31,439 --> 01:08:34,080 Is there anything you wanted to to to to talk about this or 1028 01:08:34,080 --> 01:08:35,800 mention about this film before we wrap up? 1029 01:08:37,200 --> 01:08:40,040 No. So we, I think I've done all of 1030 01:08:40,040 --> 01:08:42,040 it. And even if I haven't, I don't 1031 01:08:42,040 --> 01:08:43,680 think my vocal cords are going to hold out, no. 1032 01:08:43,680 --> 01:08:46,479 I can I can tell they are they are they are failing you. 1033 01:08:47,040 --> 01:08:49,040 So tell thank. Thank you so much. 1034 01:08:49,080 --> 01:08:53,040 And as you mentioned before, hopefully there will be a 1035 01:08:53,040 --> 01:08:58,120 festive sitcom club maybe out. Before Jeff cakes. 1036 01:08:58,279 --> 01:09:00,560 Or Jeff cakes maybe out before this is out. 1037 01:09:01,359 --> 01:09:03,920 You're not going to do another Christmas Carol, Jeff Cakes. 1038 01:09:03,920 --> 01:09:07,520 Maybe you go out on the 28th. It's it's possible. 1039 01:09:07,520 --> 01:09:09,600 I don't, I'm not. I wasn't thinking of it. 1040 01:09:09,600 --> 01:09:11,040 I did. I did the roll out through my 1041 01:09:11,040 --> 01:09:12,920 head and thought now let's do something a bit different. 1042 01:09:12,920 --> 01:09:16,279 But depends how desperate we get for content. 1043 01:09:16,920 --> 01:09:20,439 There's plenty of Christmas themed old telly out there. 1044 01:09:20,640 --> 01:09:24,000 I have a folder full of it to keep me going over the season. 1045 01:09:24,920 --> 01:09:28,359 OK, well listen, thank you all for listening and it is 1046 01:09:28,359 --> 01:09:31,920 available on YouTube. I believe Carol for another 1047 01:09:31,920 --> 01:09:36,640 Christmas I'd quite. In various yeah versions, I'd. 1048 01:09:36,680 --> 01:09:38,479 Quite like a Blu-ray of it. Yeah. 1049 01:09:38,720 --> 01:09:40,520 Well, listen, all I'm going to say is thanks for listening. 1050 01:09:40,560 --> 01:09:42,240 Have a wonderful Christmas, everybody. 1051 01:09:42,680 --> 01:09:48,560 I will be back next week with a New Year's Eve special, so watch 1052 01:09:48,560 --> 01:09:51,800 this space. Until then, have a very Merry 1053 01:09:51,920 --> 01:09:52,439 Christmas.