Episode Transcript
[00:00:08] Speaker A: On this week's prequel episode, we follow up on our casino royale listener polls, learn about the murder of Bobby Franks, and preview Rope.
Hello, and welcome back to. This film is like the podcast where we talk about movies that are based on books. Another prequel episode. We have so much to get to, so let's jump right in to our patron shoutouts.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: I put up with you because your father and mother were our finest patrons. That's why.
[00:00:38] Speaker A: No new patrons this week, but we have our Academy Award winners, and they are Nicole Goble, Eric Harpo Rat, Nathan Vic Apocalypse, Mathilde Steve from Arizona, Ent draft, Teresa Ian from Wine Country, Kelly Napier Gratch. Just scratch. Shelby says, if Batman and Catwoman can be in game in the comics, so can spidey and Deadpool, you cowards. That darn Skag v. Frank and Alina Starkov. Thank you all very much for your continued support. We really appreciate it. Katie, let's see what people had to say about Casino Royale.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, that's just like your opinion, man. On Patreon, we had nine votes for the movie, one for the book, and two listeners who couldn't decide Vicapocalypse said, hey guys, thanks again for taking this one. As I mentioned before on Thunderball, one of the big reasons why I think you two are perfect to do these Bond movies is while Brian knows cinema and Katie knows literature, you folks are not part of the Bond fandom.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: True.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: That is true.
[00:01:47] Speaker A: I have seen most of the movies, except for some of the newer ones. But over the. Over my childhood, I saw, I think maybe all of the old ones. It's just I've seen them all like once.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: And yeah, everything I knew about Bond before watching either of these movies was through cultural osmosis. So definitely not part of the Bond fandom.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And again, I wouldn't say I was part of the fandom, but I have seen, like, most of the movies.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: That's a big deal because you both bring an outsider's standpoint to your reviews. Really refreshing for someone like me, who usually only hears the opinions of other bonds.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: That's nice to hear, I will say. Cause in general, that's what we try to do. I think kind of with the podcast generally is because we're not experts on any of the specific things we're doing. Like this isn't a bond podcast or a Lord of the Rings podcast or whatever. We try to come at it from a kind of discussing them critically and in a way that's somewhat interesting and a little deeper than maybe a surface level review might give you. It's also, we're not people who know any given movie or book or whatever. We don't know it like inside and out. So it's very much a, here's our perspective, having butted against past it as like a ship in the night or whatever.
[00:03:08] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, there are definitely things that we've covered that we're more into than other things. Lord of the Rings, I think, being a good example of that.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: But, but even that, even that, neither of us, and neither of us are fandom people.
[00:03:21] Speaker A: Not really, no. I used to be more than I am now.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
But neither of us are really bringing that, like, perspective of, like, having been steeped in the discourse for a long time.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: Yeah. Not in the same way. Like I said, I think I definitely used to be more so for certain things back in the day. Like I spent a lot of time on Reddit and stuff in relation to not, maybe not Lord of the Rings, but stuff like Doctor who and Firefly and like some of that other stuff, like in the mid two thousands, but never to the extent where I would say I was, like, upset. It was not what I spent most of my time doing. Like, for some people that's, you know, that was. They spent hours and hours and hours every day. I spent hours and hours and hours every day playing World of Warcraft. So.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: So Vic went on to say, really refreshing for someone like me, who usually only hears the opinions of other bond fans. You see things that us wise old hens miss, including some of the dodgy stuff in the books. Think of it, I was about 13 when I started reading this stuff.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: That could be dangerous.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: Glad you turned out. It seemingly, I mean, if you listen to and enjoy our podcast, you at least turned out in a way where you don't, you know, you're at least sympathetic to hearing critiques of those kind of things.
[00:04:40] Speaker B: I can't choose between the movie and the book because they are both my favorites. To me, this is the best Bond movie. Craig has a terrific change of pace from the bonds before him and it rescued the franchise from a coma. But I think the book is great because it was creative and introduced us to a different kind of spy. And yes, of course, kicked off the series. I read the books in order. So I do have nostalgia for this as my first Bond book.
For Katie's question about the Double O designation, it has been a long time since I read all the books, but my memory is that a few of the later books state outright that the zeros in your double O represent the kills needed to obtain this designation. I knew it.
[00:05:24] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't think the book specifically stated that.
Again, they said you had to have two kills, but they weren't like. And that's what those zeros mean. So I don't know. You know, it may come up in another book.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: I know Brian likes Casino Royale, but I didn't get a clear picture on what Katie thought. So, Katie, here's my big question, which you can answer here or on the next episode. Did you like it? I did.
[00:05:49] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: It's probably not a movie that I would like rewatch on my own. Yeah, but I feel that way about a lot of movies. But I did. I did like it. I thought it was fun.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
We may end up watching more of them. I want to see what happens in the series now. I particularly am interested to see what I think of Quantum of solace on a second viewing because I did not like it the first time I saw it years ago, but I also fell asleep halfway through because speaking of my World of Warcraft addiction, it literally came out. We went and saw it the day after Wrath of the Lich King came out and I was up for like 48 straight hours playing World of Warcraft. So I fell asleep in the movie. But anyways, I would be interested to revisit some of Craig's later films and see I like Skyfall from my memory. Anyways, there you go. Katie liked it.
[00:06:38] Speaker B: Our next comment was from Shelby, who said, I thought about watching the movie and sharing my thoughts like I did for Thunderball, but I saw Casino Royale when it was in theaters and I can't do it again, folks. I'm sorry. This movie had teenage me rethinking all her life choices. Plus I knew there wasn't going to be an abundance of wildlife to distract me this time.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: Oh, in Thunderball, the fit.
[00:07:01] Speaker B: Yeah, there was like sharks and fish. Yeah.
[00:07:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: Just listening to the summary in this episode reminded me why this movie felt 8 hours long. This was the first and only Bond movie I watched before you covered Thunderball. If this is a great Bond movie, I think I don't like Bond movies.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: Real quick, I want to go back because I did think, I actually do think that maybe, maybe my the the top critique I would have of this movie, and it's, to be fair, it comes straight from the book. Is that going back to the part where I said just listening to summary this episode, listening to the summary in this episode reminded me why this movie felt 8 hours long.
The movie's, like 2 hours and 20 minutes.
I think the pacing on it's a little strange at times because you have, like, it almost feels like the movie's over, like, twice, and then it's not in a way that's kind of strange. I think it works, but I can understand it feeling like a. Because, like, the whole, like, everything with leshiff and everything happens, and, like, that all wraps out, and you think you're like, okay, we're at the end, but then there's, like, another 40 minutes in the movie left.
[00:08:08] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:09] Speaker A: And it feels a little like, oh, okay. There's more. Like. I don't know. And it's the same way in the book. Like I said, that whole element of the plot comes from the book, but it is. It does feel.
It's not what you're expecting. I think going in with, like, a bond movie of, like, okay, we're gonna have the build up, the lead up to the main mission. Then we're gonna do the big main mission, and then it's over. And in this one, it's, like, the lead up to the main mission. We do the big main mission, and then there's, like, 40 minutes of, like, a denouement where we find out Vesper was, like, you know, a double agent. And, like, the emotional crux, like, of the film occurs, but, like, not the narrative. Like, I mean, it is the narrative crux, but, like, our climax, but it's. It's not the narrative climax you've been expecting the whole time. So it feels like it kind of comes out of nowhere. And I think it can kind of make the pacing feel strange, especially if you're not expecting it.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: I will also say, in regards to the pacing, I don't think this is necessarily a problem, but I could see how somebody might not like it. That that first part of the movie is, like, really, really fast paced and action heavy.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: And then the actual main meaty part of the movie is a little slow.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: In comparison.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: Yeah, in comparison. And like I said, I don't think it's necessarily a problem, but I could definitely see how you could go in and get that first part, and then you're like, okay, what are we doing.
[00:09:35] Speaker A: In a casino now for a while?
[00:09:37] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It's fair.
[00:09:40] Speaker B: Okay, back to Shelby's comment. This was the first and only Bond movie I watched before you covered Thunderball. If this is a great Bond movie, I think I don't like Bond movies. This might just be a personal taste issue with the spy genre. In general, no matter how much I want to like it, the serious examples just frustrate me. But sometimes I enjoy the comedies I loved, Johnny English and spy, for example. I have the same issue with westerns. I want to like them. I don't have nice thoughts about true grit, but I enjoyed the Apple dumpling gang movies as a kid. I. I'm not sure how those hold.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: Up, though I will say so when you say that if this is a great Bond movie, I think. I don't like Bond movies. And I think Vic actually responded to this because I would agree with Vic's comment that while I think this may be the best Bond movie and is my favorite, I don't know if it's indicative of what Bond movies generally are compared to the rest of the library of Bond films, other than this is indicative of kind of, like, what the Daniel Craig movies are like. But prior to that, I would say, like every other Bond movie before this is way sillier.
[00:10:51] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:52] Speaker A: In line with, like, Thunderbolt. Thunderball's not that silly, but, like, they're way more.
They don't take themselves as seriously. They're not trying to be as serious of films for the most part. And some of them really do border on, like, kind of farcical comedy at times. Like moo. And I think the two that Vic recommended to Shelby, like Moonraker and one of the other ones I can't remember, definitely fall in line with that because Moonraker, when I was a kid, I hated, which is funny because you think as a kid, like, oh, the goofy. I thought it was so corny. Like, I remember. I say kid. I don't know, I was probably like twelve or 13 when I saw it.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: No, see, that's perfect. That kind of thing.
[00:11:32] Speaker A: But it was right in that race. Like. But I was. Yeah, yeah. And I was like, this is the corniest, goofiest thing, like, any. Compared to even, like, some of the other. Because those are Roger or Moonrakers. Roger Moore. I don't remember what the other one was, but even compared to, like, some of the Roger from war movies, which were never my favorite as a kid, they're still just like, some of them were, like, Moonraker. And a couple of those other ones are so goofy that I was just, like, almost camp. Almost. Yeah. Which again, I think I could appreciate now more than I did when I was preteen or a teenager. But, yeah, I think this is a good Bond movie and the best one, maybe, but that doesn't mean if you don't like this. I wouldn't say that means you wouldn't like any Bond movie. I just think you wouldn't like maybe the Daniel Craig Bond movies. Well, even Skyfall's a little more playful and silly. The last half of Skyfall, without spoiling things, is just like the last act of it is literally home alone. Like, James Bond playing home alone, kind of from my memory, sounds kind of silly.
They're still serious and they're taking themselves seriously as movies, more so than any other Bond movies. But I think some of the later ones kind of got a little more.
[00:12:44] Speaker B: Yeah, well, maybe at some point we'll have to cover one of those more, like, silly, kind of campy ones, because I would be interested to hear, like, Shelby, if you like comedic spy movies, what your take would be on, like, a purportedly serious, but, like, kind of goofy and campy by a movie like that.
[00:13:05] Speaker A: Because, like, Moonraker is not a satire. It's not like making fun of spy movies. I wouldn't say. I don't think, at least, but it's just. It does a lot of good. He, like, it really leans into the wacky spy gadgets and stuff and, like, at one point, literally bond drives a gondola off, like, up onto land and it, like, turns into a hovercraft. Like, it's super ridiculous stuff.
Anyway.
[00:13:29] Speaker B: I think that would be interesting too, though, because I feel like without those Bond movies, you're gonna be getting a lot of the, like, the origins of the things that the satirical spy movies are lampooning.
[00:13:43] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, 100%. Like, Jaws is from Moonraker. Jaws is one of the famous Bond villains, and he's from Moonraker. I think he might be in another one, but he's mainly in Moonraker. The guy with, like, metal teeth that, like, bites through cable card cables and stuff. Yeah. Again, they're very, very silly.
[00:14:03] Speaker B: All right, next comment was from Nathan. Nathan said, so I loved this movie when it came out, and I can honestly say that I didn't understand it at all. I just thought it was Bond being badass and cool. Watching it again with the benefit of having read the book really opened up a much deeper understanding.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: I want to stay here. This was also my experience when I saw this movie. When it came out, when I was twelve or 13, I don't think I understood at all what the actual plot was or, like, why anything was happening.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: Like, the themes and emotions.
[00:14:35] Speaker A: Not even that I'm talking literally the narrative. I don't know if I understood, like, why Lachifra needed money, why they were playing poker, why Vesper crossed Bond, and, like, what her plan? You know what I mean? Like, I don't think I, like, I'm talking just nuts and bolts of, like, what was narrowly happening. I literally don't think I understood, because I think this movie does kind of, in a way that I think works, expect the audience to kind of just keep up, whereas in some of the other bond movies, they're a lot more explicit about, like, and this movie explains a lot of stuff. We literally get a phone call at the end where he's on the phone with em, like, well, we found out she was a spa, blah, blah, blah. You know, like, it's not. It's not the most subtle filmmaking in the world, but compared to some of the other bond movies, it's really, like, it's not nearly as ham fisted as a lot of those other ones are. And so, yeah, I don't know if I understood what was happening in the movie either. When I saw it the first couple times.
[00:15:33] Speaker B: Watching it again with the benefit of having read the book really opened up a much deeper understanding. The idea of Bond becoming Bond is really well explored in the film, as y'all mentioned. I think it's better than the book because we really get that sense of tragedy that Bond has to stop really being human to be the best weapon he can be. The book really doesn't seem at all introspective about this. Bond just kind of seems like an asshole who has one good idea in his monologue about who the villain is, but he never really acts any different because of that thought, and he clearly learns that he's wrong at the end. I think Fleming means that to be a good, if not fully happy, ending. I can't feel like Bond is really hurt by losing Vesper because he never stopped being horrendously sexist to her. Perhaps there's something deeper that I just can't find under the 1950s sexism and jingoism.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: I don't think there is.
[00:16:25] Speaker B: To me, though, it really feels like Fleming stumbled into a good idea but was unable to really recognize it and do anything but dismiss it because it clashed with his belief system.
I respect that the film was able to give this idea, the story.
I respect that the film was able to give this idea, the story it deserves. It really fits perfectly with their intention to reground bond.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: No, I agree entirely. Yeah, that echoes a lot of my thoughts.
[00:16:51] Speaker B: Vesper was named that way because vespers are evening prayer services and she was born in the evening. I don't know why the storm was mentioned because that really doesn't seem relevant to her name at all.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: So, yeah, I thought the book and I have to go back and double check. And I assume he's referencing what the book says. The book does say something about storms or a storm and that being related.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: To her name, it's probably just to sound dramatic.
[00:17:14] Speaker A: It also could be a thing, like, maybe when there were storms in the evening, the wives would pray. Would do an evening prayer for the sailors or Fisher. I don't know. Like, if this is like a. Assuming she's from.
I mean, it's the UK. A lot of people lived on the coast because it's an island. So, like, you know, and maybe it was related to, like, the evening prayer for people out on, like, when they're war storms. I don't know. I'm just guessing. But, yeah, there was something to do with a storm in the book.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: I was a bit surprised that Emm was a man in the book. I had legit forgotten that it was a change to have her played by Dame Judy Dench.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: Yeah, she's been doing it so long now, which is actually one of my favorite random things is that they kept her from the Pierce Brosnan ones. They, like, changed everything else, but they're like, nah, we want to keep Dame Judy Dutch. She's great. She was a great m since moment one, and she has exactly the gravitas for it. I. And she. Yeah, she feels like she would run a murderous.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: Like the fucking navy. Yeah.
Nathan wanted to say Smirsh is the best. And by best, I mean funniest name for an international terrorist organization. Boo on the movie for not using it. I would watch Smersh of Solace in a heartbeat.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: That would make for a much funnier second series or second film in the series. Smersh of Solace doesn't have quite the same ring as quantum of solace.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: It has a totally different ring that I also love.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:18:46] Speaker B: Nathan's last comment here was Katie deserves mad props for her guess who skills. Her work, especially with Felix Leiter, was downright sherlockian. Thank you.
[00:18:57] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:18:58] Speaker B: And our last comment on Patreon was from Steve from Arizona, who said, never been a fan of the Bond movies, but I generally watched them because my friends still liked them. I am a Bond music aficionado and have opinions.
Chris Cornell's song is pretty mid. Is that how the kids use it? Sure, sure.
[00:19:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:20] Speaker B: My only real hot take is the song by Wings and Billie Eilish. Are the absolute worst of the series.
[00:19:27] Speaker A: I think those are two of my favorite. I think Billie Eilish is just really good for my memory. And the wings one, isn't that the.
[00:19:34] Speaker B: One like, everybody likes?
[00:19:36] Speaker A: No, not as a Bond song, maybe. It's a. It's a great song. It's live and let die.
[00:19:40] Speaker B: That's.
[00:19:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Which I love that song, but it's. And music snobs also hate Paul McCartney a lot. And not Paul McCartney, but, like his. Some of his solo work and stuff and wings work and everything. People aren't as big a fan. I'm not. I'm the least snob. Music snob person that has ever existed.
[00:19:59] Speaker B: I have no horse in this race.
[00:20:00] Speaker A: Like, I'm just. For me, I am the least of all the things I am snobbish about. Music is probably the lowest on the list. Like, I have no.
I like garbage. I like complicated, weird stuff. I like all kinds. I just. I don't have. I can enjoy music regard and I'm this way about a lot of stuff. But really with music, I. I don't. I don't have, like, the people who are like, well, this music's good. This. I don't. I don't know. I. If it. If I enjoy it, I like it. Like, I don't think about music in that same way, I guess.
[00:20:32] Speaker B: No, I'm the same way. If it's good enough for me, I think. Think it's good?
[00:20:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, yeah, I don't. I don't listen to. I, like live and let die because I listen to it and I go, this song fucking slaps. And I don't know, like, musically, is it interesting or complicated? Maybe not. Maybe it is. I have no idea. I don't really care. I'd like it. So, yeah.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: Steve went on to say, I know a lot of people love Paul McCartney, but whatever.
Goldfinger. Nobody does it better and the world is not enough probably have the best. Sorry for the weird foray.
[00:21:04] Speaker A: Pullfinger is a classic. I don't know. I don't remember what the other ones are. What does. Nobody does it. I don't even know which one that's from. That's gotta. That's not the name of one of the movies, so that's gotta be which. They're not always the same as the movie, but, yeah. So I don't know what. Which one that's from, but Goldfinger is from Goldfinger and that one's a classic. And world is not enough.
[00:21:21] Speaker B: I would have a lot of questions if Goldfinger wasn't from Goldfinger.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: And, yeah, I don't remember what the world is. Not enough one is. But yeah.
[00:21:28] Speaker B: Anyway, Steve said, sorry for the weird foray, but I thought I would contribute this week.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: There you go. We appreciate it. I mean, that's always a fun. It's a fun different angle.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: And you gave Brian a chance to rant about music.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:44] Speaker B: Over on Facebook, we had one vote for the movie and one for the book. And Andy said, there's no way for me to come at this without being informed by my pre existing history of having seen all the films, read most of the stories, and having thought about it a lot, I have to choose the film for the overriding reason that despite its contentious ideology and attitudes, it is a well executed, competent piece of art that brings the excitement, glamour and intrigue that it intends, along with a fantastic cast. While on the other hand, it's a.
[00:22:17] Speaker A: Very even handed and, like, measured review.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: While on the other hand, Fleming's Bond stories are poorly written, openly chauvinist in all senses, and often just plain weird. Fleming, to me, was a hack, writing borderline propaganda. Did you write the Wikipedia page, Andy?
[00:22:38] Speaker A: Right.
[00:22:40] Speaker B: While a more intellectually honest and literary treatment of the same subject would come along in John le Carr, who wrote a tinker Taylor soldier's body.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:22:51] Speaker B: It's very hard for me to separate James Bond as a whole from the issue of what we now call copaganda. Sorry to be a downer. No, not at all.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: No. And I think that's totally fair. I think it's. I know if you're somebody who can't divorce, I can imagine reading a James Bond book and being like, fuck this. This isn't for me at all. And I would not begrudge anybody for feeling that way when reading one of the books.
I agree, because obviously it's very clearly, openly chauvinistic. Talked about that and jingoistic and all these other things. And I wouldn't even say borderline propaganda. I'd say it basically just is propaganda. Like, maybe not intentionally so, but that's the result of what it is. It is like british intelligence propaganda and, like, british propaganda. But I don't find his writing to be bad. Like, I don't think as a writer that he. You said the Fleming's bond stories are poorly written. I don't find them poorly written. I think he's kind of an interesting style and. And has some really compelling moments in them. I guess I agree in the sense that it's not, like, brilliant. I don't read it and go like, this is fantastic. But, like, I don't think it's, like, bad writing. I think it's like, fine. I think it's serviceable for what it's doing. But then again, when what it's doing is being chauvinistic, jingoistic, like, whatever. Like, I get being like, man. And that's why it sucks.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:25] Speaker A: So, like I said, I don't even necessarily disagree. And you obviously, I don't think you can divorce it from copaganda or, you know, any. Any sort of anything that overly lionizes the military or police or whatever. Anything that. That over overly glamorizes militaristic force, especially militaristic force perpetuated by colonial superpowers. I can understand being like, yeah, this is gross, and it's not for me. Again, I get that. And I think it's worth appraising from that perspective.
I have the benefit of being growing up a cis, straight white guy where I cultured in a place where I don't have to deal with the baggage of that emotionally, personally. You know what I mean? I can acknowledge and see the issues, but reading it for me isn't like, I'm able to still appreciate it in other ways. And again, due to my privilege, I think that for me, I am able to kind of divorce the more problematic elements of, like, the movies and the books and the stuff from the stuff that I like more about it because I have that privilege to do that because it doesn't really affect me.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: That's fair.
[00:25:46] Speaker A: I am part of the cultural hegemony.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: So, like, all right. Over on Twitter, we didn't have any comments, but we did have three votes for the movie, zero for the book.
On Instagram, we had six votes for the movie and one for the book. That vote was from Tim Wahoo. So I've put an asterisk next to it.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: Oh, so. Cause it's not a real.
[00:26:11] Speaker B: Because it's not a real vote.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: Yeah, right. Fair.
[00:26:14] Speaker B: And we had a comment from Emily Denkulik, who said, my vote goes to the movie. Casino Royale's adaptation is what I'd like to call a stardust effect, where the book was either fine or good, but the movie was much better. Not only does it stick to the blueprint of the book, but also expands the world story and characters, making it better written, a slash developed and richer than the source material. Glad I wasn't the only one who barely remembered she was in the book.
I presume he means.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: I assume he means Vesper. Yeah.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: Vesper, like Brian said, was more compelling in the movie than the book. Eva Greene's performance brings some class to Vesper as a beautiful, intelligent, and not easily seduced by Bond's charming good looks.
So my argument and fan response to the Thunderball episode was that Daniel Craig was more close to the book version of Bond than Sean Connery. Now that you've read and watched the movie, what do you think, Brian?
[00:27:15] Speaker A: Hmm. That's an interesting question. I would say, yeah. Other than I assume he means temperament and personality wise and not just looks or whatever.
[00:27:28] Speaker B: Right. Because we know people were upset that, yeah, he doesn't really.
[00:27:33] Speaker A: He's blonde or whatever, but yes, in terms of the character portrayal and nothing disregarding physically like what the person looks like. Yeah, I would agree with that, I think. And even. Honestly, even in regard to the physical, I think he kind of looks like what you expect he has, that he's not as dashingly handsome as we talked about in the book, that in the book, Bond has a scar on his face and obviously Daniel Craig doesn't. But Daniel Craig looks like a guy that's been in a bar fight, whereas Sean Connery ness doesn't really have that same kind of look. I don't know. There's something about Daniel Craig that has.
[00:28:10] Speaker B: The rough and tumble, a little more of a feral energy.
[00:28:13] Speaker A: Yeah. And so, yeah. In that regard, I agree entirely. And just, yes, personality wise, I do think. I agree. I think in general that he feels more in line with the bond of the books in that the bond of the books isn't nearly as suave or debonair, at least the two I've read. He's not as suave or debonair as, like, and smarmy as the.
As the Sean Connery version is. He is a little bit more cold and calculating and he can turn on charm when he needs to, but he is much more of a cold, callous operator. And that feels more in line with the bond that Daniel Craig does.
[00:28:57] Speaker B: Yeah. So do you think then, that perception of Bond as suave and charming and pop culture, that perception of bond comes from the movies?
[00:29:09] Speaker A: Oh, 100%. Yeah, 100%. Again. And it's not that he's not in the books like he definitely is, and he schmoozes and he picks up women and seduces. Right. It's not that he's not. I just think it's dialed up to, like, eleven in some of the older movies, and this one is maybe more in line with how the book is where it's there, but it's not. He turns it on and off a lot more and it's a.
I don't know, there's some little subtleties to it that I think. Yeah. That this movie captures maybe more than Connery's performances did.
[00:29:42] Speaker B: All right. Okay. Continuing with our comment here, there is no 6th Daniel Craig Bond movie. No time to die was his last installment as James Bond.
[00:29:53] Speaker A: I knew no time to die was his last installment. I just didn't remember if that was the fifth or the 6th. I knew they weren't making another one. I just couldn't remember which number the last one was.
[00:30:04] Speaker B: Also, Katie, if you thought finger sucking was weird. I did. You have not seen what he does in Skyfall, inspector. I have not. That is true.
[00:30:12] Speaker A: I don't remember.
[00:30:13] Speaker B: Brian might know what I'm talking about in Skyfall. It's another shower scene.
[00:30:17] Speaker A: I don't remember.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: That's ominous.
[00:30:19] Speaker A: I've only seen Skyfall once. I saw it in theaters when it came out and I liked it, but I've only seen it that one time. So I do not recall what happens in that shower.
[00:30:29] Speaker B: If you guys want to do a bonus episode for your patrons, I would suggest watching the four part BBC miniseries the man who would be Bond. All four episodes are available on YouTube to watch, but the quality is 360 p.
We'll keep that in mind. I think we had. I feel like we had a couple of people mention this.
[00:30:48] Speaker A: I've heard of that before. Yeah, yeah, we'll look into it.
[00:30:53] Speaker B: All right. And over on Goodreads, we had one vote for the movie, zero for the book. And Miko said I had seen the movie once or twice before. So while reading, I too was surprised how closely it follows the book, especially the torture scene. It feels like it was made as an answer to the gimmicky lasers, sharks and whatnot of the old bonds. But even L'Chifra's dialogue is taken almost straight from the book.
[00:31:20] Speaker A: Exactly. That was kind of what I was getting at in the episode about that. That scene being in the book was so surprising because it does seem. I think I even said that, I can't remember, but it seems so responsive to the goofy, over the top torture scenes from and like interrogation scenes from other older bond movies that it felt like. Surely this is like a.
Yeah. A response to those. And no, it's just. In fact, it's kind of the opposite in the sense that this was the first. And then I guess my guess would be Fleming. Assuming those scenes in those movies come from.
[00:31:55] Speaker B: Yeah, come from the books.
[00:31:57] Speaker A: That fleming kind of elevated, you know, kept trying to find the next big, you know.
[00:32:01] Speaker B: Right. I mean, you have to keep one up in yourself. Right.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:32:07] Speaker B: I like that. In the movie, Bond is the reason for Le Chiffre's money problems. It allows for some introductions before the casino and also gives us a good excuse to fit in another action sequence.
On one hand, I totally understand the change from baccarat to poker.
[00:32:23] Speaker A: I.
[00:32:24] Speaker B: But on the other, at least in baccarat, you wouldn't get these ludicrous hands where the only question that matters is, does the sum of your cards values end in a nine?
I don't know what that means.
I don't know how to play poker.
[00:32:39] Speaker A: No. So that's baccarat. I misread that. So he's saying that in baccarat. Because that's the thing. In baccarat, the way it works is you're trying to get your cards to total nine, basically, or end in nine. Cause you actually cut off the first number. If it's like 19, that would be nine. Still, from my understanding of how it works, it's kind of a confusing.
[00:33:03] Speaker B: I could get on board with that kind of math.
[00:33:06] Speaker A: It's kind of confusing. But his point being that. And that's kind of what I talked about the episode in Baccarat, because it's more like blackjack, kind of.
There's a simplicity in the way the hands play out, whereas in this one we get. It's just the poker hands are so over the top, like, silly that anybody who knows poker is like, this is ridiculous. Whereas with baccarat, since barely anybody knows how it works. And even if they do, like, it's not, as the hands are a little more normal.
I could see the argument being like, by using baccarat, maybe you would get rid of the problem of somebody who knows how poker works kind of being pulled out of the movie.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: I see. Yeah.
[00:33:48] Speaker A: You know what I mean? Because they're like, this is ridiculous.
[00:33:51] Speaker B: We use a game that nobody knows.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Or that very few people know. So that way they're like, they're pulled in more to the drama and aren't taken out by the fact that they know this is a ludicrous portrayal of poker.
[00:34:02] Speaker B: Okay, fair enough.
Mika went on to say, I read the 1991 finnish translation and realized when listening to the episode that the translator might have tried to tone Bond down a bit. For example, tang of rape had turned into tang of violence, and bitch was something akin to a broad bird or maybe a ditz. Clearly, Bond is still sexist in this version, too, but the tone is noticeably different. Yeah, yeah. I would say that's a noticeable difference. And it's a much less violent.
[00:34:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. But it's.
I don't know if that's a good thing.
[00:34:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:41] Speaker A: In this instance, I don't know if making those edits is better.
[00:34:44] Speaker B: I mean, I would say no.
For me personally.
[00:34:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
I mean, just, like, literally, like, softening the language a touch. I don't think does anything like the way to address it is to do what this movie does and to make it, if you're going to use that language still to recontextualize it entirely, where it becomes clear that Bond is saying these things because he's lashing out, because he's hurt. Yeah.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: All right. Mika went on to say, and to defend the biggest narrative leap of the movie, we see Bond pinpointing the location of the phone pretty damn accurately, thanks to the mi six. Maggie, Maggy tech.
[00:35:22] Speaker A: I think he's saying Magitek, like magic technology.
[00:35:25] Speaker B: Okay. We see a nice little red dot on a map on the road right in front of the clock.
[00:35:30] Speaker A: Okay, fair enough.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: Fair enough. I didn't clock that it was supposed to be that accurate.
[00:35:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I thought that was more of, like, this is the hotel. Like when you. Like, when you type in an address on Google Maps and it drops a pinna, like, in front of the place. The place. I assumed it was more like that and not like, this is exactly where the call was, but fair enough.
[00:35:49] Speaker B: You know what? You know what? Maybe we would have realized it was supposed to be that precise watching the movie in 2006.
[00:35:59] Speaker A: That's true.
[00:36:00] Speaker B: Maybe because now we have, like, better technology. Do you see what I'm saying?
[00:36:06] Speaker A: I can see what you're saying, yeah.
[00:36:08] Speaker B: All in all, I think the movie successfully takes the story of the book, updates and upgrades it, and manages to reboot the franchise nicely. I don't care about the book that much, so the movie is a clear winner.
[00:36:20] Speaker A: Fair enough.
[00:36:23] Speaker B: All right, so probably to no one's surprise, the winner this week was the movie with 20 votes to the books, three with an asterisk, plus our two listeners who couldn't decide to.
[00:36:34] Speaker A: All right, fantastic, rousing victory for the film, as I kind of expected. So very good. Thank you all so very much for all of your comments and your voting. We really appreciate it. Love the feedback. Always one of my favorite parts of doing the podcast. Katie, it's time now to learn a little bit about the subject of our story. This week, we're going to learn about the murder of Bobby Franks.
[00:36:59] Speaker B: No matter what anybody tells you, words.
[00:37:02] Speaker A: And ideas can change the world.
[00:37:05] Speaker B: All right, so we're about to become a true crime.
[00:37:08] Speaker A: Yeah. What are we doing? For a minute, I feel like I'm on a different podcast all of a sudden.
[00:37:13] Speaker B: So I was not anticipating finding a whole bunch of interesting stuff about this play.
And then I went toodly doot over to the Wikipedia article, and I saw that it said that Rope is said to be inspired by the real life murder of 14 year old Bobby Frankenhein by Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb.
[00:37:37] Speaker A: Mm hmm. Yeah, I saw that as well.
[00:37:40] Speaker B: And so then I did my little clicky click, and I opened up the murder of Bobby Franks on Wikipedia. And I started reading, and I was like, it got more fascinating by the second.
[00:37:58] Speaker A: Reading it, from my understanding, that's why the, the play and the film are based on it is because it is kind of a really strange case.
[00:38:08] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on here. And initially I was trying to do this as a really short little rabbit hole in the book section, and then it got out of hand, so I had to make it its whole own learning things segment. So this is true crime with Katie.
[00:38:27] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:38:28] Speaker B: All right, so Nathan Leopold Junior and Richard Loeb.
[00:38:34] Speaker A: What we need to do, though, is that we need to pivot into speculating on the motives of living family members of true crime victim victims and whether or not maybe they were complicit and or guilty in the murder of their loved ones. That should be fun. Let's do that.
[00:38:48] Speaker B: Maybe not. Maybe people should not do that.
These guys are both dead.
[00:38:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:54] Speaker B: So, yeah, also, it's a song. They definitely did it. Yeah, they definitely did it.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: This isn't a. Let's go speculate.
[00:39:02] Speaker B: So these two guys, these two assholes, usually referred to collectively as Leopold and Loeb, were two american students at the University of Chicago who kidnapped and murdered a 14 year old boy in May of 1924.
So a little bit of background here. Both Leopold and Loeb came from wealthy, very wealthy, very privileged backgrounds.
Both of them were considered very intelligent. I think Leopold was like a child prodigy.
And then Loeb, I think I have this right, went to college at like twelve or something crazy like that. They grew up in the same neighborhood and they knew each other, but they didn't really become friends until during college. They were also purportedly lovers.
[00:39:52] Speaker A: Yeah, that's supposedly.
[00:39:54] Speaker B: Supposedly.
[00:39:55] Speaker A: We'll talk about more when I talk about the film, but that's an element of the film and the book or the play, I believe.
[00:40:03] Speaker B: So. Leopold was particularly fascinated by Friedrich Nietzsche's concept of Ubermensch supermandeh, and he believed that perhaps both he and Loeb could become such individuals, or perhaps were such.
So by his interpretation of Nietzsche, they were not bound by any of society's normal ethics or rules needed to bring.
[00:40:35] Speaker A: A philosopher on for that. I don't know any. I have not read Nietzsche. I have the most.
[00:40:40] Speaker B: I have not read Nietzsche either. I'm going off of. Of Wikipedia.
[00:40:44] Speaker A: Okay. Only the most cursory knowledge of.
[00:40:47] Speaker B: So, I mean, I don't know that it really matters what Nietzsche's actual concept was here. What matters here is that Leopold interpreted it as if you belong to this class of, like, better human beings. That means that you're not party to any of society's roles. You're too good for it.
[00:41:09] Speaker A: I know it's very complicated, and I'm not gonna get on the rabbit hole, but I believe, because I know it's, again, people, there's millions of hours and pages of ink spilled on this topic, but there's also some level of nietzschean philosophy. I believe that the nazi party was inspired by. From my understanding, again, whether or not that was maybe a perverted version of what Nietzsche was saying, or whether or not it's in line with what Nietzsche was saying, I don't know. Not making any claims to that. I'm just saying that that is also woven in with that.
[00:41:42] Speaker B: So Leopold, in a letter to Loeb, he wrote, a superman is on account of certain superior qualities inherent in him, exempted from the ordinary laws which govern men. He's not liable for anything he may do. So this is the mindset we're working with here.
So these two p's in a pod start testing this. They start asserting what they perceive as immunity from normal restrictions through acts of, like, petit theft and vandalism. And they're able to get away with that. So they get even more emboldened. They progress to more serious crimes, including arson.
Still, nobody seems to notice what they're up to.
So disappointed with the absence of media coverage of their crimes, because we want attention, they decided to plan and execute a sensational, perfect crime, quote unquote, which would gather them public attention and prove that their superior intellect did entitle them to do whatever they wanted without consequence. So what they settled on as the perfect crime was kidnapping and murdering a younger teen. They were 18 and 19 at the time, these two.
So they've spent, like, seven months planning this, from the method of abduction to the disposal of the body, they purchased a chisel and a length of rope.
[00:43:13] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:43:14] Speaker B: And to make sure that each of them was equally culpable in the murder, what they planned to do was wrap it around their victim's neck and each pull on one end to strangle them to death.
[00:43:24] Speaker A: Both.
[00:43:25] Speaker B: Yeah, they're both equally culpable in this.
So the pair decided on Robert Bobby Franks, who was the 14 year old son of a wealthy Chicago watch manufacturer.
He was also an across the street neighbor of Loeb's who had played tennis at his house several times. So this kid knew them.
[00:43:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:49] Speaker B: And on May 21 of 1924, they lured Franks into a car that Leopold had rented using a fake name under the pretense of, like, giving him a ride home. And then after Franks got into the front passenger seat, one of them struck him with a chisel, dragged him into the backseat and gagged him. And I say one of them because they gave conflicting testimony on who was driving and who was in the backseat.
He died in the backseat? I'm not sure, just from, like, the cursory reading that I did on this, if it was from, like, the blunt force trauma or if he suffocated or if something else happened. But according to testimony, he was already dead when they dumped his body in a culvert and they used hydrochloric acid to obscure his identity.
Now, by the time they got back to Chicago from dumping the body, word had already spread that this kid was missing. Leopold then called Frank's mother, identifying himself as George Johnson, and told her that Franks had been kidnapped and that there would be instructions for delivering a ransom coming soon.
They then mailed out a typed ransom note, burned their bloodstained clothing and cleaned the bloodstains from the rented vehicle's upholstery and spent the remainder of the evening playing cards.
Okay, now, the ransom part of their plan was abandoned pretty quickly because they found the body pretty quickly.
A lengthy investigation then followed during which Leopold and Loeb frequently discussed the case with friends and family, with Leopold even going as far to talk to reporters about it.
Real textbook serial killer, inserting yourself into the case kind of stuff.
But things began to fall apart for the Ubermensch when police found a pair of eyeglasses near Frank's body. And they were fitted with an unusual type of hinge, which was only purchased by three customers in Chicago, one of whom was. Wouldn't you know it, Leopold.
[00:45:56] Speaker A: Good Lord.
[00:45:57] Speaker B: When questioned, Leopold offered the possibility that maybe his glasses had dropped out of his pocket during a bird watching trip the previous weekend. Definitely it. But nonetheless, the two were summoned for formal questioning on May 29. And they stated that on the night of the murder, they had picked up two women in Chicago using Leopold's car. And then dropped them off, sometimes later near a golf course without learning their last names. However, that alibi was exposed as a lie when Leopold's chauffeur told police that he was repairing Leopold's car. When the men claimed to be using it. So these guys were not as smart.
[00:46:35] Speaker A: As they thought they were for the most perfect crime in the world. But you sure got a lot of holes in it. Sure. I got a lot of issues with the lies and brilliant plan that you've concocted here.
[00:46:48] Speaker B: We really thought we were untouchable, huh, guys? So Loeb confessed first.
He blamed Leopold for planning the entire thing. And for the actual physical act of the murder as well. Leopold's confession swiftly followed, in which he insisted that he was the driver and Loeb was the murderer.
Their confessions otherwise corroborated most of the evidence in the case, though the trial was a media spectacle, as I'm sure you can imagine, and the third to be labeled the trial of the century.
Leopold and Loeb's defense attorney was Clarence Darrow of Scopes fame, who took the case because he was a staunch opponent of capital punishment and wanted to grandstand about it. Darrow concluded that a jury trial would most certainly end in conviction and the death penalty. So he entered a plea of guilty, hoping to convince the judge to impose sentences of life imprisonment instead.
So the trial, which was technically an extended sentencing hearing because they had entered guilty pleas.
[00:47:54] Speaker A: Right.
[00:47:54] Speaker B: But that ran for 32 days. And Darrow's impassioned, eight hour long masterful plea at the conclusion of the hearing has been called the finest speech of his career.
His principal arguments were that the methods and punishments of the american justice system were inhumane, as well as the youth and immaturity of the accused, to which I mightily roll my eyes.
[00:48:18] Speaker A: What do you mean?
[00:48:21] Speaker B: I agree with him about the american justice.
[00:48:23] Speaker A: Okay. I was like, what? Are we going to have to have an argument here?
[00:48:26] Speaker B: No, I disagree about the youth and immaturity of these two chuckle fucks.
[00:48:34] Speaker A: Sure. I mean, yeah, that part is. Whatever.
Yeah, I don't. I would not.
I'm just against capital punishment generally, period. Across the board. So, like, it doesn't matter to me how old they are, but, yeah, I'm.
[00:48:52] Speaker B: Not saying that it does.
[00:48:54] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:48:56] Speaker B: Anyway, the judge was persuaded. He explained in his ruling that his decision was based primarily on precedent, as well, as the youth of the accused.
And he sentenced both Leopold andloeb to life imprisonment for the murder and an additional 99 years for the kidnapping.
So Loeb was attacked and murdered in prison in 1936. And Leopold was paroled in 1958 and died of a heart attack in 1971 at the age of 66.
[00:49:26] Speaker A: Well, there you go. There's a little bit of the history of the case that this play is based on. So now let's learn a little bit more about the play in question. Rope to my daughter, five.
That's the last time she ever saw him alive.
And that's the last time you'll ever see him alive.
What happened to David Kentley changed my life completely and the lives of seven others.
[00:50:00] Speaker B: All right. Rope is a 1929 play by english playwright and novelist Patrick Hamilton.
Fun fact. You've heard of another of his plays that was also adapted for film. And that would be Gaslight.
[00:50:16] Speaker A: Oh, the famous.
[00:50:18] Speaker B: The famous gaslighting where the term gaslighting fame. Gaslighting fame. Yeah.
[00:50:23] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah.
[00:50:25] Speaker B: Rope was first presented by the repertory players in London in March of 1929.
The following month, the play opened in the West End and that production ran for six months. It opened on Broadway in September of 1929, where it was retitled Ropes End for some reason. No clear explanation for that.
Then in December of 2009, there was a revival of the play in London.
It was first broadcast on experimental live television by the BBC in 1939, and it was adapted by Hamilton.
Do you have notes about this?
[00:51:08] Speaker A: No.
[00:51:10] Speaker B: So the only thing that I have to add to that then, is that this is purportedly like Hitchcock saw this live televised version of it and was inspired to adapt it because of that.
[00:51:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I did not have notes about that, so that makes sense, though.
[00:51:25] Speaker B: And then aside from that, it was also dramatized for radio in 1983, starring Alan Rickman, which we have had several people mentioned to us already.
[00:51:36] Speaker A: I didn't know that. Yeah. All right, cool. That is a little bit about the play. Let's learn now a little bit more about the film. Janet Walker, Henry Kentley, the boy's father.
[00:51:50] Speaker B: His aunt misses Atwater, his best friend.
[00:51:54] Speaker A: Kenneth Lawrence, a housekeeper named Misses Wilson, and the two who were responsible for.
[00:52:01] Speaker B: Everything, Brandon Shaw and Philip Morgan.
[00:52:13] Speaker A: Rope is a 1948 film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, known for Psycho, Vertigo, north by Northwest, the Birds or a Window, etc. Etc. Etc. He's Alfred Hitchcock. Go look him up. It was adapted by Hume Cronin, who's mainly an actor and really only has a few writing credits apart from this, with screenplay by Arthur Lorenz, who seems to be the main writer, screenplay by Arthur Lorentz, who's primarily a Broadway writer. He literally wrote the book for west side Story, Gypsy, Hallelujah, baby. And he also wrote the film Anastasia, the 1956 Anastasia.
But he'd won several tonys and was a very prominent writer back in the day. Again, mostly worked in Broadway, but also had a quite a long list of films that he was involved in.
The film stars Jimmy Stewart, John Dahl, Farley Granger, Cedric Hardwicke, Constance Collier, and Joan Chandler.
It has a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 73 on Metacritic, and a 7.9 out of ten on IMDb. It was nominated for best motion picture at the Edgar Allan Poe Awards, which honor the best in mystery, fiction, nonfiction film, tv and theater. Been going on for quite a long time.
So the film was kind of a flop theatrically, making only 2.2 million against a budget of roughly 1.5 million. It was not super, super successful. So this is famously one of Hitchcock's most experimental films, consisting of a string of long, single take shots. Each shot could run up to approximately ten minutes before they would have to cut. Because the cameras they were using at the time literally could only load ten minutes worth of film at a time, roughly. And then you would need to reload it. So that was. That was the extent of what they could shoot at a given time. And most of the shots are more in the, like five to nine minute range. But there is one that's like 1014 or something like that, the walls of the set, because. So the film almost exclusively takes place in one set, one location. It is this, like. Like dinner party that they're at in like an apartment, I believe. And the walls of this set were constructed on wheels so that they could be rolled in and out to give the camera room to move while continuously shooting. The entire thing was very highly choreographed, basically like a dance to get all of these moving parts to work together. Cause they had sound and they had lights and music and all. Or not music, but light, lights and sounds and the sets, along with the actors that all had to kind of move in perfect concert to make these ten minute long shots work or whatever.
[00:54:51] Speaker B: I have a question real quick. Okay, so they can only shoot ten minute long shots. Would that still be the case today if you're shooting on film?
[00:55:01] Speaker A: No, no. There's probably ways to put way more.
There's probably, like, hardware. You could. I have no idea. I've never shot on film.
Not. Not movie like, not film film. I've shot. Got pictures on film, but I would imagine that you can probably load more now. Like, there's probably ways you can come up with contraptions to, like, run, like 30 minutes. I don't know. I have no idea. My guess would be that you can load. You could load more film now, but nobody shoots film anymore. Like, it's very rare. It's not nobody, but it's almost nobody shoots film anymore. So just because it's so expensive in comparison to shooting digitally. So Jimmy Stewart found this process of filming exhausting, saying, quote, the really important thing being rehearsed here is the camera, not the actors. He would say of the film later, it was worth trying. Nobody but Hitch would have tried it, but it really didn't work, end quote. So he didn't think this film worked out, despite being an interesting experiment. The backdrop of the film, that outside of the apartment we see the skyline of Chicago, or no, New York. This one takes place in New York. And that's actually. I didn't know this. It's called a cyclorama. It actually comes from greek, I believe. Something to do with whatever, but cyclorama. And this was at the time the largest one ever used. It included models of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler building. There were also chimneys that smoked. There were lights that turned on on buildings, neon signs that lit up. They had clouds in the sky made of spun glass that also moved and changed shape over the course of the film.
So it's all these artificial miniatures in the background to create the skyline of New York out the windows. That.
Yeah, sounded very cool.
Got to read this part directly from Wikipedia. This is all sourced from Wikipedia, but read directly from it and call out that it's from Wikipedia. Just. You'll see why if you're in a very online person. Recent reviews and criticism of rope have noticed a homosexual subtext between the characters Brandon and Philip. This is what we were talking about earlier.
Brandon and Philip are the murderers. The Loeb and what was the other one?
[00:57:16] Speaker B: Leopold.
[00:57:17] Speaker A: Leopold of this film. Yeah. Even though homosexuality was highly controversial, obviously, and a highly controversial theme for the 1940s. John Dahl, who plays Brandon, is believed to have been gay, as was screenwriter Arthur Lorentz, while co star in the film. Farley Granger was bisexual, I guess openly, maybe not openly at the time. I don't know.
So interviewed by Vito Russo for Russo's 1981 book the Celluloid Closet. Very famous book about homosexuality in Hollywood. And film again, pulled this for Wikipedia directly just in case anybody wants to come after me.
There was a big controversy. There was a very famous, or say famous. There was a very small, niche queer film youtuber who got busted for all of his scripts just being plagiarized to hell, literally just copy pasting from books and Wikipedia and stuff and then passing it off as his own video essays, essentially.
It was a big thing, like a year ago or whatever.
And one of the things that people talk about that was one of the big, the cellulite closet was one of the books he used a lot and pulled stuff from that people were like, you're plagiarizing from. Anyways, it was a whole deal.
Lorentz, the author or the screenwriter in that book, said, we never discussed hitch and I whether the characters in rope were homosexuals, but I thought it was, apparently. And there's a documentary from 1995 that is an adaptation of the celluloid closet, or it's a documentary, you know, based on the book, basically. And in that documentary, Lorentz says, quote, I don't think the censors at that time realized this was about gay people. They didn't have a clue that what.
They didn't have a clue what was and what wasn't. That's how it got by. Also in that documentary, what was the name Farley Granger says of Brandon and Philip, the two main characters, quote, so we knew that they were gay? Yeah, sure. I mean, nobody said anything about it. This was 1947. Let's not forget that. But that was one of the points of the film, in a way, end quote.
So I thought that was interesting. We'll look for that in the film. I believe it's also, from what I've read, a part of the book, like text in the. It's basically, it's, I think, subtext in the movie, but essentially like text in the play from what I've heard of. So I think, I thought this was interesting. Wikipedia actually has a table that shows you all of the takes in this film or all the shots in this film, how long they are and where they start and finish in the film. If that kind of thing gets you going, if you want to see exactly, it'll tell you where the cuts are and how long each shot is. And that's why I said one of them was ten minutes and 14 seconds, but most of them range like five to nine minutes, roughly.
Hitchcock very famously always makes a cameo in his movies. And his cameo in this film is around the 55 minutes mark. There's a neon sign in the background that turns on, and it is the shape of Hitchcock's famous profile. He had a logo. That was his thing for the Hitchcock stuff. He did. And that logo appears in the background. But he, as a person does not appear in the film. There is speculation that he does. In the very beginning of the film is on the street, and people have seen him and they're like, that does have seen the guy. People like say they think is him. And everybody thinks it, like, does look a lot like him. But it sounds like there's no confirmation of that. And in, like, some of the. Like the. The actual credits for the film, he's not credited as one of the people on the street or whatever. So the only official cameo from Hitchcock is that sign in the background. But he may or may not make a physical cameo at the beginning in the movie.
Whether or not it's up to you if you would like to believe that's him or not.
This was Hitchcock's first color movie, apparently, which was interesting and then getting into some reviews. Contemporary reviews for the film were mixed. From the time Variety wrote, Hitchcock could have chosen a more entertaining subject with which to use the arresting camera and staging technique displayed in rope. The continuous action and the extremely mobile camera are technical features of which industry craftsmen will make much of. But to the layman, audience effect is of a distracting interest.
Writing for the New York Times, Bosley Crowther said, the novelty of the picture is not in the drama itself. It being a plainly deliberate and rather thin exercise in suspense. But merely in the method with which Mister Hitchcock has used to stretch the intended tension of the film. Of the little stunt. Or for the length of.
[01:02:04] Speaker B: Of.
[01:02:05] Speaker A: Let me read that. But merely in the method which Mister Hitchcock has used to stretch the intended tension for the length of the little stunt. And with due regard for his daring and for that of transatlantic films, one must bluntly observe that the method is neither effective nor does it appear that it could be. End quote. So these are people criticizing the choice for these long takes. And making the film all appear to be like one continuous thing.
The Chicago Tribune's May Tenney was candid about her reaction, saying, quote, if Mister Hitchcock's purpose producing this macabre tale of murder was to shock and horrify, he has succeeded all too well. The opening scene is sickeningly graphic, establishing a feeling of revulsion which seldom left me. Which seldom left me during the entire film. Undeniably clever in all of its aspects. This film is a gruesome affair. And to me at least, was a grueling spectacle not recommended to the sensitive. End quote. You also note there, that's the Chicago Tribune.
Assuming people would have known this was based on the murder of Bobby Franks at the time. So this is a local critic from Chicago being like, hey, this is gross and weird.
John McCartan for the New Yorker said, quote, in addition to the fact that it has little or no movement, rope is handicapped by some of the most relentlessly arch dialogue you have ever heard. End quote.
[01:03:26] Speaker B: I'm so excited.
[01:03:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Harrison's reports gave the film a very positive review, calling it, quote, an exceptionally fine psychological thriller with excellent acting and an ingenious technique. And under Hitchcock's superb handling, it serves to heighten the atmosphere of mounting suspense and suspicion. So that critic, obviously, very much in contrary, you know, flying in the face of the earlier critics who were like, this technique does not help the movie at all. It's distracting and doesn't really build the tension in the way that Hitchcock thinks it does. While being technically interesting, this critic thought it did actually, in fact, heighten the atmosphere of suspect.
And then for the Los Angeles Times, Edward and Edwin Shallert said, quote, it is unusual enough to shine more as a technical tour de force than as a moving sort of film. The interesting experimental value in this Hitchcock production could never be denied, yet I would not rate it one of his best.
In the 1948 review for Time, the play the film was based on is called, quote, an intelligent and hideously exciting melodrama. Though in turning it into a movie for mass distribution, much of the edge is blunted, saying much of the play's deadly excitement dwelt in the juxtaposition of callow brilliance and lavender dandyism with moral idiocy and brutal horror. Much of its intensity came from the shocking change in the teacher once he learned what was going on in the movie. The boys and their teacher are shrewdly plausible, but much more conventional types. Even so, the basic idea is so good, and in its diluted way, rope is so well done that it makes a rattling good melodrama, end quote. And finally, Roger Ebert, not in a contemporaneous or contemporary review, but in 1984, wrote of the film, quote, Alfred Hitchcock called Rope an experiment that didn't work out, and he was happy to see it kept out for release, kept out of release for most of three decades, but went on to say, quote, rope remains one of the most interesting experiments, experiments ever attempted by a major director working with big box office names. And it's worth seeing. So Ebert, you know, acknowledged that Hitchcock did not like it and did not think it was his best movie, but thinks it's worth seeing and that it's, you know, interesting. So before we wrap up window grimd. You could head over to Patreon and support us there. You can go over to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, goodreads threads, any of those places, follow us, interact, so we can hear what you have to say about all the stuff we talk about.
You can write us a nice little review, drop us a five star rating on Apple podcasts or Spotify or any of those places. And as I mentioned, you can support us on Patreon. And if you do that there and you support us at the $15 a month level, which is our Academy award winning level, one, we'll read your name every prequel episode. But two, you can do priority patron requests, and this one is a priority patron request.
[01:06:15] Speaker B: And this was a request from Eriche.
[01:06:18] Speaker A: There you go. So thank you, Eric. We will talk more about that later. Katie, where can people watch rope?
[01:06:25] Speaker B: Well, as always, you can check with your local library or local video rental store if you still have one. Other than that, this is not streaming with a subscription anywhere that I saw, but you can rent it for around $4 from Apple TV, Amazon, YouTube, or Fandango at home.
[01:06:45] Speaker A: I wonder if, I feel like surely Hitchcock's collection is, like, on some specific niche platform. You know what I mean? Maybe. I don't know if Criterion has their own streaming service, but I could see if they had Hitchcock.
[01:07:03] Speaker B: Or, I mean, the app that I use to look these up usually lists criterion when it's on there. So, I mean, unless it's out of or wrong, which it could be.
[01:07:13] Speaker A: Yeah, fair enough. All right, that's gonna do it. For this prequel episode. I'm interested to check this one out. Hitchcock movies are always fun. I mean, they're always. Usually a good dude didn't really make a lot of bad movies, usually.
And this is one of those ones that I've heard a lot about over the years, just from the. Not even from, like, people being like, oh, it's so good. You gotta see it. Or anything like that. But just like, oh, yeah, that's all right. Hitchcock did that one movie where he did a bunch of long takes to make it look like a single take, which is always, I always find fascinating as a filmmaker, examining the different ways you can structure a film and particularly use kind of interesting, especially for the time. This would have been a very unique direction to take a film. Obviously completely unique at the time. So, yeah, I'm looking forward to checking it out.
[01:08:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I am interested. This is the first time that we'll be talking about a play on here and not a book and you guys will have to let us know what you think because I am a little worried about.
Because when you talking about a book as compared to a movie, you're meant to consume them in different ways. So a book is written to be read.
[01:08:30] Speaker A: Written to be read.
[01:08:31] Speaker B: And a play is. Is written to be performed and consumed that way. And a movie is also a performance. So you're consuming it in the way that it was intended to be. Like you're consuming the story in the way that it was intended to be consumed still.
[01:08:46] Speaker A: Yes. Whereas your point being that normally in an episode, when we do book versus movie, you're consuming the book the way it was intended to be consumed, and you're consuming the movie in the way it was intended to be consumed, barring, like, being in a theater or whatever. Whereas in this instance, the play is intended to be consumed as a play, and you're just reading it, and I'm just reading versus the film where that is. You know, we're watching the film the way it was intended to be watched. So it seems like the play's coming in at a disadvantage, I guess.
[01:09:14] Speaker B: Right. So I am interested to see how that goes, as per our discussion. And you guys will have to let us know if you think it's still interesting.
[01:09:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that will. It will be interesting. Let us know, and that'll kind of determine how we. How we handle plays moving forward. But, yeah, that'll be in one week's time we're talking about rope. Until that time, guys, gals, nonbinary pals.
[01:09:35] Speaker B: And everybody else, keep reading books, keep.
[01:09:38] Speaker A: Watching movies, and keep being awesome.
