You Must Remember This

If you’ve finished all episodes of The Old Man is Still Alive, I’ve got another treat for you from Jake Brennan at Hollywoodland.  Have a listen to this episode of Hollywoodland about John Waters, from his beginnings in X-rated art films to cult classics like Hairspray and Crybaby, as he created and cultivated his own peculiar niche in film while nurturing a legendary troupe of players who became a family of outcasts.

In part two of our season finale, we explore the final decade of John Huston’s life and career. As he was slowly dying of emphysema and undergoing massive turmoil in his personal life, Huston continued to work almost compulsively on both passion projects (The Man Who Would Be King, Wise Blood, Under the Volcano) and paycheck gigs (Annie). His career ended, fittingly, with two collaborations with the next generation of Hustons, Prizzi’s Honor and The Dead.

(00:00) The Man Who Would Be King

(10:20) Marital Strife and Relocating to Puerto Vallarta

(16:37) Wise Blood

(20:49) Annie

(29:25) Under the Volcano

(34:49) Prizzi’s Honor

(42:42) The Dead and The Old Man is No Longer Still Alive

This series began with the story of a director who wrote his autobiography to secure his place in history after his career had gone down the drain. It ends with the story of a man who wrote his autobiography as a “dead man walking”...and then continued to make movies for another half a decade, until the literal last breath left his body. Hollywood’s original “nepo baby” director, John Huston was never a conventional studio system stalwart, and in some respects he was able to go with the flow of changing times a lot better than some of his contemporaries. In part one of our two-part season finale we’ll talk about his flight from Hollywood to Ireland, literally playing God, Huston’s long fallow period in the late 60s, Anjelica Huston’s misbegotten film debut, Huston’s reinvention in the New Hollywood era and the health crisis that almost ended it all.

(00:00) John Huston…In the Beginning

(09:22) Huston in Exile

(15:40) Playing God and Facing Mortality

(24:01) Casting Anjelica and Working with Orson Welles

(34:11) Fat City

(41:43) Noah Cross and Chinatown

This episode was originally released on March 3, 2015. Listen to help prep for the next episode of our new season, The Old Man is Still Alive.

She was the raven-haired beauty whose lily-white persona was forged by her supporting roles in Gone With the Wind and several Errol Flynn swashbucklers. He was the real-life swashbuckler, the heroic lover/drinker/fighter whose directorial debut The Maltese Falcon, was an enormous success. They met when Huston directed de Havilland in his second film, In This Our Life, and began an affair which would continue, on and off, through the decade, as he joined the Army and made several controversial documentaries exposing dark aspects of the war experience, and as she waged a war of her own, taking Warner Brothers to court to challenge the indentured servitude of the star contract system. De Havilland’s lawsuit went all the way to the California Supreme Court, and had massive implications on the future of labor in Hollywood and beyond. 

How does an artist once perceived to be ahead of his time fall behind the times? The choreographer/director of Golden Age classics like Singin’ the Rain and Funny Face left Hollywood for all the 60s and the first half of the 70s, perfecting a certain brand of sophisticated comedy/romance abroad with films like Charade, Bedazzled and Two for the Road. His rough Hollywood re-entry was marked by exercises in nostalgia for eras gone by (Lucky Lady, a movie about Prohibition Era gangsters starring Burt Reynolds and Liza Minnelli; the 1930s spoof Movie Movie) and attempts to give audiences of the 80s what it was assumed they wanted (the sci-fi debacle Saturn 3, the sex comedy Blame it on Rio).

(00:00) What Makes Donen Fascinating

(07:56) Charade

(15:39) Two for the Road

(26:19) Bedazzled — The Gold Standard Stoner Comedy

(30:18) Staircase, Funny Face, and The Little Prince

(35:38) Lucky Lady

(47:16) Movie Movie

(57:36) Saturn 3, “A piece of shit”

(01:02:42) Blame It On Rio

This episode was originally released on December 22, 2015. Listen to help prep for the next episode of our new season, The Old Man is Still Alive.

In the 1940s, Louis B. Mayer was the highest paid man in America, one of the first celebrity CEOs and the figurehead of what for most Americans was the most glamorous industry on Earth. In 1951, Mayer was fired from the studio that bore his name. What happened -- to Mayer, and to movies on the whole -- to hasten the end of the golden era of Hollywood?

George Cukor had always experimented within his relatively broad lane, often finding nuanced ways to explore women’s lives, including their sex lives, under the constraints of the Production Code. But after winning the best Director Oscar for Best Picture-winner My Fair Lady in 1964, Cukor’s career slowed down considerably, and as the 60s turned into the 70s and both gender roles and the movies went through massive changes, Cukor was still making the same kinds of things he would have made at the peak of the studio system, regarding which he adopted an extremely defensive stance. Then, suddenly, in 1981, with Rich and Famous, Cukor caught up with the sexual revolution – a decade too late.

(00:00) “George Cukor’s filmography is his most eloquent defense”

(07:21) Thriving Under the Studio System

(11:43) Heller In Pink Tights and The Chapman Report

(21:26) My Fair Lady and Cukor in the Sixties

(40:53) Justine

(48:03) The “I’ll do anything” Tour and Financial Woes

(54:40) Rich and Famous

This episode was originally released on March 21, 2017. Listen to help prep for the next episode of our new season, The Old Man is Still Alive.

How did a star whose persona seemed to be all about childlike joy and eternally vibrant sexuality die, single and childless, at the age of 36? In fact, the circumstances of Marilyn Monroe’s death are confusing and disputed. In this episode we will explore the last five years of her life, including the demise of her relationship with Arthur Miller, the troubled making of The Misfits, and Marilyn’s aborted final film, and try to sort out the various facts and conspiracy theories surrounding her death.

Henry Hathaway started directing in the early 1930s and though he made movies of all genres, he was particularly associated with Westerns. This allowed him to ride out the 1960s making pretty much the same kinds of movies with the same stars (Gregory Peck, Robert Mitchum) that he had been working with for decades. But shortly after the massive success of Hathaway’s True Grit in 1969 – for which John Wayne won his only Oscar – the director felt he was being put out to pasture by a changing industry. His last film would be Hangup (also known as Super Dude) a work-for-hire that he claimed he took only as a favor to the producer, and which was dismissed at the time as a sop to the Blaxploitation trend - not least by Hathaway himself.

(00:00) “Less Than Meets the Eye”

(06:18) “Screaming Henry”

(10:06) WWII and The House on 92nd Street

(16:50) Kiss of Death 

(21:42) Legend of the Lost

(29:36) How the West Was Won, Circus World, and The Sons of Katie Elder

(40:27) True Grit, Airport, and Raid on Rommel

(50:57) Shoot Out 

(54:58) Brut Productions, Hangup/Superdude, and the Last of Henry Hathaway

For over 40 years, William Wyler was one of Hollywood’s most dependable classicists, culminating in 1968 with the ultimate New Hollywood-era throwback to Old Hollywood, Funny Girl. Then, for his final film in 1970, Wyler uncharacteristically directed a searing indictment of contemporary race relations, called The Liberation of LB Jones.

(00:00) When Wyler Went Weird (Twice)

(04:05) Neorealism, Auteurism, and the Cahiers Crowd

(12:41) WWII, Ben-Hur, and Turning Down The Sound of Music

(20:49) The Collector, Terrence Stamp, and Samantha Eggar

(34:17) How To Steal a Million, Audrey Hepburn, and Peter O’Toole

(40:11) Barbra Streisand and Funny Girl

(48:32) Wyler’s Swan Song: The Liberation of L.B. Jones