Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: On this week's prequel episode, we follow up on our rope listener polls and preview Vampire Academy.
Hello, and welcome back to this film as lit, the podcast where we talk about movies that are based on books. It's another prequel week, and we have quite a bit of feedback to get to on rope, so we'll jump right into our patron shoutouts.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: I put up with you because your father and mother were our finest patrons. That's why.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: No new patrons this week. But we do have our Academy award winners, and they are Nicole Goble, Eric Harpo Rath, Nathan Vic Apocalypse, Mathilde Steve from Arizona, Ent draft, Teresa shorts, 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 Elena Starkov. Thank you all so much for your continued support.
Make sure you're getting in those patron requests, which I think everybody is. We're scheduled so far out now. Yeah, I think we're getting.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Yeah, we have a bit of a.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: Backlog, so appreciate that. But we will get to them all one day. Katie, it's time to see what the people had to say about this patron request as we do our listener poll follow up for rope.
[00:01:34] Speaker B: Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man. All right. We had a lot of feedback on Patreon, and we had just, like, kind of a heads up. We had, like, comments that spread across multiple comments, multiple posts, and some conversations. So not everything is in, like, the order that you might expect.
Mostly because there was one particular question that we had had during the episode that there was a conversation about, and I tried to put all of that stuff together.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:02:10] Speaker B: So just a heads up on that. But on Patreon, we had three votes for the movie and two for the book. Eric said, thanks so much for covering this play movie. I have so many things to say. I apologize.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: And Eric was a patron that requested this? Yes. Okay. Just making sure.
[00:02:31] Speaker B: I'm glad you disagree with those who at the time thought that rope was an ambitious failure. I agree. I find the tension in this movie delicious and very effective. And other than some on the nose dialogue, I think it's a fantastic movie.
I also dislike the ending, over the top speech by Rupert, especially this Rupert, who I don't think fully addressed the issue. He says that Brandon and Philip twisted his words to have a meaning he never dreamed of. Literally. What other meaning could his words have? By changing Rupert's philosophy to be more overt and a more direct call to go murder people if you think you're better than them. I just don't think the movie totally made that make sense. If you're literally telling your students that you think it's cool to murder people who are in front of you in line for a movie and double down when asked if it's a joke and insist that you're not kidding, what did you expect impressionable kids to take away from that?
[00:03:24] Speaker A: Okay, so we have a lot of comments in this vein.
[00:03:27] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:03:27] Speaker A: And I will say this. I don't disagree, but I feel like there is a specific type of person that this.
[00:03:39] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: A specific type of person that this movie is criticizing and holding up here. And the fact that he. Cause a lot of comments are, like, what other possible interpretation do you think these kids could have? And how are you so stunned at the end? I think that's the point. And the point is that Rupert lives in this world of, like, when he says at the end, oh, you twisted my words and stuff. Obviously, they didn't. They just applied the thing that he was saying. The point is that because Rupert lives in such a. Like a detached, academic navel gazey, like a bubble kind of, he expresses these opinions, and he maybe even believes them to some extent. But actually seeing them played out is something that he. He can't really wrap his head around, and it stuns him completely at the end when somebody actually goes through with the thing he's saying. Because I think in his head it is, no matter how much he, you know, pretends to actually believe it and and plays coy about what his actual beliefs are, he.
He's never really thought through this stuff or not thought through it, but he's. He.
I don't know how to express this, but, like, I have met this person.
[00:05:00] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: Who. Whose beliefs are abhorrent, but.
And I think these people are more common than maybe you think, whose beliefs, if taken to their logical endpoint, result in terrible things. But people hold contradictory, ridiculous beliefs like that all the time. And maybe not even contradictory, but beliefs that they don't practice and if practiced, would be terrible. People hold those beliefs all the time. And it's. It's kind of part of being, like, human to some extent. But specifically, I think it's an inherent flaw or not an inherent flaw. I think it's a fault that a lot of people are guilty of. Of not fully extrapolating their views out to, like, the logical app or the practical application of them, even if what you're saying is literally, we should, it's, it's fine. It should be fine for superior people to murder inferior people.
It literally takes somebody doing that. For him to have that crisis of conscious and realize that his, like, again, introspective, sort of detached academic exploration of that is not worth anything is actually bad. I don't know. I'm having a hard time putting it into words, but do you get where I'm going to?
[00:06:29] Speaker B: Yeah. And I feel like you could maybe liken it to Internet discourse.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: Yes, no, I agree. Cause that's. That. Yes. Yeah.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: I think you could liken it to, like, an example that's coming straight to the top of my mind is that I, I run in a lot of Internet circles where people tend to call for bloody revolution a lot. Yes. And like, you know, oh, bring out the guillotines and da da da da Walmart, etcetera. Yeah, yeah. And, you know, I can empathize, yes.
With a lot of the sentiment and a lot of the, like, frustration and anger behind that. But I also think that the majority of the people who call for those things would actually be horrified to find themselves in those situations.
[00:07:24] Speaker A: Yes. And it's, there's a very famous tweet that is very controversial for a lot of reasons, but it's in regard to this specific topic that is, the voting pales in comparison to my strategy of firebombing a Walmart and then they don't firebomb a Walmart. Like, that's, you know what I mean?
[00:07:42] Speaker B: And it's not a perfect, like, one to one comparison of what's going on in this movie and then this play. But, you know, I do think that.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: But I think that's a very good example.
[00:07:54] Speaker B: I think it's a good example in that I do believe that a majority of the people who go on the Internet and call for us to firebomb Walmart, if people actually started going out and firebombing Walmarts, they would be like, oh, hey, wait a minute. Wait just a second.
[00:08:10] Speaker A: Yeah. And obviously, maybe that's not a good example. And again, that tweet is also kind of tongue in cheek, specifically the specific example of fire robbing a Walmart, because a lot of people come back and go, well, actually, that's not what we're calling for. We're calling for blah, blah, blah, this, that and the other. But yes, the wider, broader concept of a violent leftist revolution, which, again, I am sympathetic to philosophically in a lot of ways. But, you know, as soon as people went out and started guillotining politicians or whatever, or CEO's, it becomes a whole different thing.
[00:08:42] Speaker B: Yes. It becomes real then, in a way.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: That I don't know if a lot of the people who espouse those views would be completely on board with in.
[00:08:49] Speaker B: The same way that they. And I do think that, yes, what we see here is kind of a similar idea of Rupert has been espousing these ideas without really considering what that looks like in reality. And then when he's confronted with that reality, he's also forced to confront what his ideas have been, and he tries.
[00:09:08] Speaker A: To distance it from. He goes, oh, well, you know, what makes you think you're superior to him? And blah, blah, blah, and, like, oh, you know, he kind of has to reckon with what he was saying and, like, whether or not what they did actually even coincides with what he thought he was saying. You know, that sort of thing. And, yeah, and so, like, I. Because, again, we're going to get this comment a lot, and I'm going to just address it here because I don't. We're not going to repeat it, like, six times. But, yeah, I think that, to me, it still works, despite being, like, ridiculous. Like, when you get to the end, you're all like, come on, man. You were literally just 30 minutes ago in this movie insisting that, no, you really believed that inferior people or superior, the superior man, should be outside of the traditional moral system and can do as they please, essentially, and they're not held to the same morals because of their superiority and that sort of thing. But again, seeing that rit bear and the fruits of that philosophy actually played out in front of you.
Of course they did exactly the thing you said, but that's the point.
[00:10:17] Speaker B: But seeing it played out in front of you is a far different thing than sitting around chit chatting about the philosophy behind it.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: Well, you sit martinis at a dinner party. Yeah. And I think that's the point.
I almost think that the fact that it is such an obvious, like, well, duh, man, that's what you were saying of, like, why are you surprised that that's. It's like. Yeah, because his. I think the movie is saying his vacuous, sort of like an academic ponderance of this philosophical idea and support of it is what's bad. And that, yes, of course it should have played out. Like, of course this is the result of what he was saying. I don't know. We're just going around in circles here. But I think it still works. But I understand.
I kind of understand where some people are coming from in that it kind of, like, takes them out of it a little bit to be like, well, what did you think was your response?
[00:11:13] Speaker B: Well, I mean, but I think both things can be true at the same time. Like, yeah, it is true that, like, what did you think was gonna happen? Like, that is true, but I think it's also true that this is a certain type of person who is espousing, you know, these ideas without having actually thought through what that looks like in reality and then is forced to confront that.
[00:11:39] Speaker A: And this may be controversial, but I think this is also true. You know, the example we used was, like, violent leftist revolution or whatever, but I think this is also true to some extent on. On the extreme right or whatever, of people who, you know, like, the most overt. I don't want to give them too much credit, because I do think that a lot of them do mean it, but I would be fine with it ultimately. But I do think there is not a non small subset of people on the Internet who like to LARP as Nazis and stuff that were there actually concentration camps might not be so chill about it, or, like, might not support it in the same way. I don't know. I could be wrong about that. And again, I'm not inclined to give shithead right wing trolls on the Internet any sort of benefit of the doubt, but I do think that kind of. It's a similar type of thing that maybe, were that to come to pass, some of those people would not be.
[00:12:33] Speaker B: Like, as, like, as okay with it.
[00:12:36] Speaker A: As they think they would be. Yeah, I think maybe. And again, I could be wrong about that. And again, I think I'm very much. Yeah, I don't know. I just think it's interesting. Cause I do think it's kind of a. Yeah, it's one thing to talk about a thing and say, like, oh, yeah, I believe this thing. It's a whole other thing. When you see the results of that thing you said you believe play out in front of you, actually manifest, and then, you know, whether or not, you know, you still believe that thing you thought earlier was true or not is, you know, whatever.
[00:13:06] Speaker B: All right. Eric went on to say, I agree and am thankful that there doesn't seem to be any tie between Brandon and Phillip's sexuality relationship to the murder. It's just another unspoken undercurrent, another secret they're concealing from their guests. Though people generally say the play is more overt with the gay subtext, I think the movie actually is in the play, Brandon and Philip or Windham and Charles seem to be younger. They're explicitly still in college, so it makes more sense that they're rooming together and they're not planning on going to Brandon's mother's home after the murder. They're planning to go back to school. While movie Brandon and Philip both seem.
While movie Brandon and Phillip both seem to be out of college, yet they still live together, vacation together, visit Brandon's mother together. To me, the vibes are stronger there. That is a fair point that I had not considered either.
They were roommates.
Some fans think there's subtext of Rupert potentially having had a relationship with Brandon previously. There's a few lines. They go off that Rupert has stayed at Brandon's mother's farm. The line about Brandon staying up all night at the master's feet, referring to Ruperthenne and Brandons general desperation to please and emulate Rupert. But I think casting Jimmy Stewart, who know nothing about even the subtext between Brandon and Philip and definitely doesn't play it as if he had anything to do with Brandon beyond being his teacher, mitigates this.
[00:14:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I know we had several comments, I think, or maybe just this one, about the potential relationship between Rupert and Brandon, and I did nothing get that. But these, you know, these little, you know, bits from the story do. I could see it?
[00:14:50] Speaker B: Yeah, I could see it.
I also agree with Katie. I think the movie is much better than the play. Just that one change of making all the characters connected to David makes the tension much better, the interactions more interesting, and make more logical sense. Why would Brandon even bother inviting Kenneth and Layla if they didn't even know David? Also, very happy that y'all had a lot of love for John Dahl as Brandon. I agree. He's fantastic in the role of. I also enjoyed watching Farley Granger fall apart. As the night progresses. I can't tell if he feels guilty about the murder. He seems more afraid of getting caught and increasingly upset at Brandon for his need to make innuendos about the murder and orchestrating these situations that might get them found out. Love to see a man fall apart.
[00:15:35] Speaker A: To me, he read as that he did feel guilty, that he did feel bad, kind of in a way of, like, once it had finally. They had finally done it. Kind of similar to Rupert of like.
[00:15:46] Speaker B: Yeah. He has also been confronted with the.
[00:15:49] Speaker A: Reality situation and is like, oh, shit, that was fun to talk about. All right. Up until we did it, and then we did it and like, oh, fuck, yeah. Like, this is bad. Like, I do think there's some level of guilt there. I think it's also a huge level of just not wanting to get caught. But to me, there's moments that read like he seems like he feels bad, like he does feel guilty.
[00:16:10] Speaker B: And I think either way, Brandon's behavior does not help his situation and everything he has going on. While looking for a different quote, I found this one by Patrick Hamilton about the movie adaptation that I just had to share. Quote. I was heartbroken by the film of rope. I had thought working with Hitchcock was going to be heaven and put everything I knew into it. However, he utterly rejected my script, got someone else to write it, and finally produced a film which I think and all intelligent friends agree was sorted and practically meaningless. Balls.
Interesting, and very interesting. Cause I felt like they were pretty similar, all things considered.
[00:16:53] Speaker A: I think there could be a layer here where, to me, from what you said, and having not read it, the book, the philosophical sort of, you talked about how in the movie, they do kind of dumb and down some of the philosophical discussions in a way to make it play a little bit better and just more kind of broad for a general audience. And I think that specific thing, those specific changes to kind of like Rupert's philosophical discussions and stuff to the original author could make it feel very like a minimal ver. Like a minimized and, like, kind of dumbed down version of what he was trying to get across, which I think is totally fair. And that very well could be the case, because I will say this. I agree that, in general, I think there's still interesting things with Rupert and him confronting the fruits of his philosophical musings.
And I think that still works in the movie. But I think, in general, the movie is most effective as just a fun thriller, suspense kind of thing.
[00:17:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I would agree, as more of.
[00:17:57] Speaker A: A soapy kind of experience and not so much as a really deep, compelling moral philosophy exploration. You know what I mean? Like, there's a little bit of that in the movie, but it's not like most of what the movie is doing. Most of what the movie is doing is like, isn't it wild that these two guys murdered this kid and he's in the thing, they're serving dinner? You know, it is more. We're leaning into the spectacle and, like, the morbid fascination of the event as opposed to, like, actually prying apartheid philosophically, what's going on there? Which I think maybe the playwright probably thought he was doing a lot more interesting things in the play.
[00:18:39] Speaker B: Yeah, Eric's last comment was, anyway, I apologize for the long comments. Thank you again for covering this adaptation.
Thank you for recommending it. We had fun talking about it.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Our next comment was from Kelly Napier, who said, I appreciate the movie for the exercise that it was. Film students for years to come will be studying what Hitchcock did with the extended takes. But when you mention the movie, the enduring legacy is the artistic jump Hitchcock made with his direction and not the actual plot or acting of the movie itself.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: Hmm. I mean, I guess I could agree with the plot potentially, but I think.
[00:19:19] Speaker B: The acting is fantastic in the movie.
[00:19:21] Speaker A: For the most part.
[00:19:22] Speaker B: Kelly went on to say, the play does a better job with the story and the characters. Despite knowing for minute one what the men had done to this kid, I found myself completely invested in what was going to happen next and if the crime would be discovered despite the evidence being literally right in front of them.
[00:19:39] Speaker A: I will say that was the exact experience I had watching the film, having not read the play.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: So maybe the movie was also lessened for me because I had already listened to the play, and so a lot of the tension just didn't seem to be there anymore. Like the movie memento, a lot of the thrill was gone after the first time I could see that I'd be interested to see who read the play versus listening to it. It's obvious Katie caught things I didn't catch since she read it and was able to get the stage directions. Whereas I think the play struck me more because I was listening to a radio dramatization of it and was able to get very invested in what was going on.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: I could totally see that. And that goes back to what you were saying.
[00:20:19] Speaker B: Right. Well, and I think we had at least one other person who preferred the play, who had also listened to it and not read it. So maybe my assessment that it didn't matter, that I hadn't seen it performed was incorrect because.
[00:20:34] Speaker A: Oh, did you? Was that your assessment? Oh, I guess you did say that, but. Well. Cause you.
[00:20:39] Speaker B: Well, I said. Yeah, I said that I thought I probably would have enjoyed it more had I watched it, because reading it, I found a little boring.
[00:20:50] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: But I also said that I didn't think that it would have made a difference in my assessment of movie versus book.
[00:20:59] Speaker A: Yes, and I think that's a slight distinction, but, yeah. Your point was that you still think you would have chosen the film over the radio play.
[00:21:05] Speaker B: Right.
[00:21:06] Speaker A: But you may have enjoyed the radio play more than just reading the play.
[00:21:11] Speaker B: Right. But maybe I was incorrect to assume, I don't know, that I enjoyed the movie more than I would have enjoyed seeing the play or listening to the play. And Kelly does hit on here. The reason that I ended up not listening to it because I considered listening to it, because I felt like that would maybe be a little bit closer to watching it.
[00:21:32] Speaker A: Right.
[00:21:32] Speaker B: But when I opened it up and I saw the massive amount of stage direction, I was like, oh, maybe I better read it because I wanted to make sure that I was getting all of the stuff that was hidden in that stage direction.
[00:21:46] Speaker A: The real secret is to listen to it while also reading the stage direction.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: No, see, I can. I considered that, too. That was what I was going to do originally because I often do that with audiobooks. I'll listen and read along because that helps my poor addled brain stay focused. But again, I was worried that I was going to miss stuff. If I kept having to pause it to read stage direction or if I forgot to pause it, I was going to be reading the stage direction and I was going to miss things happening. So I ended up just reading it.
[00:22:20] Speaker A: That's fair. Yeah. Cause that's tough. Yeah. In that particular instance. Yeah. If you're reading the stage direction, you're reading different words than what you're hearing. So it becomes like this kind of garbled mess in a way that could be a problem. I was worried, like, radio play doesn't pause for the stage direction.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: And I was worried that I would be too distracted with the back and forth of, like, oh, do I pause it? Do I skip it? What do I do? And that I would end up nothing absorbing what I was reading and listening to.
[00:22:49] Speaker A: That's fair. Makes sense.
[00:22:52] Speaker B: Our next comment was from Steve from Arizona. And Steve said, I didn't read the book, and I consider the film in the middle of Hitchcock's filmography, but I give it to the film because I do love complicated and interesting camera work.
[00:23:06] Speaker A: I do think.
I don't know where I'd rank it among Hitchcock's films. I have not seen all of his film.
[00:23:14] Speaker B: Nearly enough Hitchcock to make an assessment at that, I think.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: I would agree in the sense that. I don't know. I think I'd put it, for me, I'd put it above the birds. I thought the birds is just like, it's not my favorite. I don't know what it is about. It just doesn't do a lot for me. Rear window, I'd be close. I think I might put rear window, I think, above rope just as a. As a movie, because I think it's a maybe just like a slightly better overall film, from my memory, it's been a while since we did it north by northwest. I think I would put above it as well. And then I'm trying to think I've seen at least one other psycho I think I would put above rope. I just think psycho is a more engrossing film. Just generally. Even though there's a lot of moments I like in rope, I don't think as a whole it quite lives up to something like Psycho or north by northwest. So I think middle of this filmography probably is where I would rank it.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: From what I've seen, at least, Steve went on to say, so much of our modern camera techniques have been replaced with CGI assisted work for the best and the worst. That opening in touch of evil is still the standard. Citizen Kane is still the torch bearer in modern film techniques. Cause Brian's making a neither here nor there gesture.
[00:24:22] Speaker A: Look, Citizen Kane, revolutionary, lots of. And that's true in a sense, but I think that may be a little reductive of the level of modern film techniques that we can achieve. I guess what he says. Torchbearer. Yes, it is. No, because I misinterpreted that sentence. It is the torchbearer in the sense that it is the monster upon which, or the giant upon which the shoulders of.
[00:24:46] Speaker B: You can say monster. I won't judge you for it.
[00:24:48] Speaker A: No, it is the giant upon whose shoulders modern films tend to be standing in a lot of different ways in terms of camera techniques and shot composition and that sort of thing.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: And then we have some more recent modern films like Russian Ark, Victoria and Birdman, that test the limits of modern equipment and CGI blessing us with iconic cinematography, even if the subject matter is not always the most interesting.
[00:25:15] Speaker A: I've not seen russian arc or Victoria. Birdman is the modern rogue.
[00:25:19] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: Yeah, in the sense that it is. And that one doesn't have any, from my memory, actual cuts, whereas rope has some distinct. The camera cuts and we cut to a different shot. I think in Birdman it is.
There are cuts in Birdman, plenty of them, in fact, more than probably in rope, because they're able to hide them more seamlessly with modern technology. But I believe it appears to all be one continuous shot in Birdman style.
[00:25:47] Speaker B: Over substance will always win me over. Thanks for covering this film. I don't think it gets enough credit in the history of cinematography as other films do.
[00:25:55] Speaker A: I would agree with that. It's one of those things people kind of offend handedly mentioned, like, oh, rope, that's that movie that Hitchcock did that has like, it's like all one take or looks like, you know, big long takes or whatever, but it's not. It's not like, brought up in the same way as other, like, like Citizen Kane or some of these other films in terms of. Or like a battleship Potemkin or whatever, in terms of, like, being this keystone piece of modern filmmaking and, like, modern, like, camera techniques and film techniques. But it definitely in some capacity or in some ways, it definitely is.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: Alright, our next comment is from Shelby. And Shelby said it comes down to the character of Rupert. I bought his spiel about the morality of murder in the play. The movie's version strained all credulity for the situation, especially the part about how he should be able to kill the working class over any inconvenience. Then he has the gall to say they twisted his words. No, dumbass. There was nothing to twist it into. Are you sad they didn't pick a waiter instead? He may not be responsible, but I have no sympathy for movie Rupert.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: I will add. So this gets to our comment or conversation earlier, but I will add that I also have basically no sympathy for Rupert. And I don't think the movie wants you to have sympathy for him. I don't think the movie wants you. He is kind of the protagonist of the film in the sense that he's the one we're rooting for to.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: To uncover.
[00:27:23] Speaker A: Uncover the murder and like, be the, you know, the detective that solves the murder and puts the bad guys away. But I don't think, like, I did not feel bad for him. I did not feel sympathy for him. I felt like, yeah, you fucking idiot. That's what happens when you say dumb shit like that. Like, that's. That is the. That is the. You are now suffering the consequences of your rhetoric. And I honestly, at least it felt to me like that was the movie's point to some extent. Like, I felt like the movie because what they did so directly matched what he was saying, and he was so overt and being like, no. And insistent that what he was saying was what he believed, that that is the point. Like, you idiot. Like, yeah, you can't just, again, your moral philosophizing is fun for you, but when people take it seriously and do.
[00:28:15] Speaker B: It, it's no longer fun for anybody.
[00:28:18] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:20] Speaker B: And Shelby brought up specifically the difference between the play's version of his more murder morality speech and the movie's version of it, which we didn't talk about a minute ago. We did talk about it in the episode and you know, and I did prefer the stronger through line and the stronger, like, connective tissue that there was in the movie. But it is correct that the trade off for that is that his speech does seem a little more, like, over the top and on the nose in the movie.
[00:28:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:56] Speaker B: Shelby went on to say, I also thought the play did a better job keeping the tension circling back to the chest and whether someone was going to open it. I liked the ticket as a clue better, too.
Other thoughts? I listened to the radio version before watching the movie, and I was right. I can't see anyone as Alan Rickman. Anyone but Alan Rickman as Rupert, though. I think Jimmy Stewart does a fine job.
[00:29:20] Speaker A: Did Alan Rickman do the radio play? Oh, okay. Interesting. You know what's funny? And I don't know. This is as good a place as any dimension. I had this thought about, I mentioned in the prequel, and I don't think I talked about this in the episode, that Jimmy Stewart said that he thought, what's his name?
The guy who played psycho, the actor.
[00:29:42] Speaker B: Who played Anthony Perkins.
[00:29:43] Speaker A: Anthony Perkins would have been a better choice for the role. And I don't know if this is what he was. Maybe this is maybe a weird thing, but we talked about how there's some illusions in the play and stuff that maybe Rupert and Brandon had been in a relationship together. And I wonder if Jimmy Stewart also had read that into the role and was like, well, I'm not gay, and so this guy would have been better for this. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. Maybe.
[00:30:16] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:30:17] Speaker A: I don't know. I legitimately thought if that was part of what. Cause I agree that he would have been great. That Perkins would have been great. But I do wonder if maybe he did this weird distancing himself from the role when people started, like, I don't know, like, critics and stuff, and people started appraising the film and being like. And, like, the queer subtext in it and stuff like that. If he was trying to distance himself, that. I don't know. That's complete speculation.
But, like, I could almost imagine him being like, I don't know. They should have got that gay guy to do it like that, to me, almost feels like maybe. And that may be a. That's a very uncharitable reading for Jimmy Stewart of that, but I just kind of made me wonder if that's what he was getting at with that, recommending that Perkins should have done it.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: But anyways, yeah, I don't know. That's an interesting question. I do think to kind of go off on an only semi related tangent from that, I do think it's possible that Jimmy Stewart's vibe as an actor may have strained the credulity of his role in this, because other than this, I think anything else I've ever seen him in, he plays a very kind of everyman, kind of folksy, almost. Yes.
[00:31:36] Speaker A: He's very rarely plays, like, the smartest guy in the room.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: Yeah. He's more of a salt of the earth.
[00:31:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Every man.
[00:31:43] Speaker B: Like every man, you know, still smart.
[00:31:46] Speaker A: Yes. But, like, smart in an approachable way.
[00:31:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And I do think that's interesting. And I wonder if maybe that influences people's perception of him in this role specifically.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know. I think because I. That's the way I would have first interpreted his thing about how Anthony Perkins should have played the character is that Andrey Perkins has a more introspective, again, with psycho. And, like. Like the roles I've seen him in, he can do kind of shrewd and calculating and very intelligent.
[00:32:15] Speaker B: Right. Where. And where you're not really sure what he's about.
[00:32:18] Speaker A: More so than Jimmy Stewart normally does. But again, I thought Stewart was great in this role and did that just fine. Like, I thought he.
[00:32:26] Speaker B: No, I thought he was great, too.
[00:32:27] Speaker A: And again, that was just a second layer to it that I wondered is like, I wonder if years later when he was thinking about, like. Yeah, like, when people were kind of talking about the queer subtext and all that sort of stuff, and maybe he. I don't know.
[00:32:38] Speaker B: And Shelby's last comment was in the radio version. A phone rings after the murder's over. Philip answers, hyperventilates and hangs up. This is Rupert's suspicious phone call. So we have another comment, or at least one other comment mentioning this. And I'm just gonna be honest. By the time I got to the end of the play, I completely forgot that that happened. It's like, on page one, like, the play opens with it, and then by the time I got to the end, I did not remember that that happened.
[00:33:07] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:33:08] Speaker B: Next comment was from Nathan, who said, I completely agree with Katie about the experience reading rather than seeing the play.
I really didn't feel the anxiety without the chest as a visual reminder.
The sort of random wandering nature of the conversation could work with great physical performances, but felt really lacking without.
I did keep expecting to follow folks into the next room with the books and forgot that it didn't really exist on the stage.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: And that's a good point. That's another thing. Cause such a big sort of key to the tension in this story is the chest with the body in it. Center stage in the play, I imagine, and center stage in the movie. And when you're reading it, it's very easy to forget that that albatross is hanging over this whole thing.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: As far as the movie, I gotta admit, my blindness to the continuous shots, even knowing. The only thing I noticed was a pan to the back of Brandon's jacket that emerged viewing the actors from a different angle, which I assume was intended to cover a cut.
[00:34:12] Speaker A: Yeah, and there are several of those. There's another one where they open the chest and the camera goes up behind it. And that's mostly what it is. And then there are just a few hard cuts. There's like, I think the clip from the Wikipedia thing. I think the film is like seven shots total, or eight or something like that. So there's like six or seven edits in it, and two or three of them are just straight up cuts. And then the other, like four or five are basically just the camera going through somebody's back or into the chest or something like that.
[00:34:42] Speaker B: Like a hidden cut.
[00:34:43] Speaker A: Yeah, like. Like hiding it.
[00:34:44] Speaker B: Like a dark transition.
[00:34:46] Speaker A: And that's the. Yeah, and it is the easiest way to do it, even and still modern. Like, if you want to do. It's very simple. You just. You go over something where something black fills your entire frame and then you. Like when somebody puts, like TikTok, where somebody puts their hand up to a computer. Yeah. The exact same thing.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: So it was honestly a little off putting, which fits the vibe of the story.
The most noticeable thing to me was how close everyone was together. I felt like Brandon especially was actively trying to be inside everyone else's personal space. Yeah, he's that kind of guy. It created a really claustrophobic vibe and increased the anxiety of things, even when the conversation was innocuous. I agree that both Janet and Brandon's actors nailed their roles, and I would have liked their antagonism to have been even more of a focus. I think it would have made more sense to have Judith be the one to unravel the mystery. The movie, unlike the play, showed her as a willing foil for Brandon. And it would have been a satisfying resolution to have her get the ultimate upper hand rather than having her just kind of exit the play with limited resolution. She also has a more direct emotional connection to the murder than Rupert.
[00:35:56] Speaker A: I will agree that I would have liked to see more of her. Yeah. Because I liked her character a lot, and the interplay she had with, like, Brandon specifically, I don't know if I think it would have worked. I mean, you can make anything work. If written really well, it could have worked, but I would have a hard time seeing how making her be the person who unravels the mystery would work, as well, because to me, and I think the problem with it is because she has more of a direct emotional connection to the murder, I think she would be too emotionally sort of, like, invested. Invested and, like.
Like, when she started suspecting things, I don't know if she would have the emotional distance that Rupert has to be able to, like. And the kind of personality to, like, puzzle it out and put this mystery together in a way where, like, if she thought, oh, they might have murdered my fiance, I don't know if she's gonna, like, coyly play. You know what I mean? Like, coyly play.
Like, I think she's too close to the murder to, like, be, like, the clever detective kind of, if that makes sense.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: I'll agree that I think you would have to make a lot of other changes for that to, like, work work. But I also think that it would have been a really satisfying resolution to watch.
[00:37:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I think there could have been a fun way to work her into the ending. Like, I think you could have figured out a way to work her into the ending somehow. But I think it's really important that Rupert has to confront his.
I think Rupert has enough emotional distance from the victim of the murderous to be able to, like, play this all out as the fun kind of academic exercise that he likes to make everything, and then he has to confront the, you know, what his philosophizing has wrought, whereas with Janet, I just. I think once she really got to the point where she was, like, starting to think, these guys might have murdered my boyfriend.
[00:38:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:01] Speaker A: I don't know if she could keep up the act or. You know what I mean? Like, I just don't know if that would work. Like, it's too close. Like, if, like, it would have to.
[00:38:10] Speaker B: Be a different story.
[00:38:11] Speaker A: It would have to be very different.
[00:38:12] Speaker B: It would have to be a different story with a different character. She would have to be more of a Nancy Drew.
[00:38:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Or something like that. I think she's a great foil, and I even would have loved if they. If Rupert did the same thing, but then they found a way. Like, maybe he brings her in to, like, I don't know if they found a way to bring her back in the climax to give her some moment, I think could have been interesting.
Again, I just don't know if the characters as written for the majority of the film, if it would make sense for her to kind of replace Rupert in that role, because, again, I just think she would be too emotionally connected to the murder victim to be the detective. I don't know.
[00:38:53] Speaker B: So continuing on here, we're getting into our discussion of. We had a question in the main episode. Well, I had a question because this is something that's in the play but not in the movie, about the specific use of a word. And I'm going to say the word once, so we're all on the same page. The word is fag.
And I had a specific guy in general. Yes.
I had a specific question about how it was used in the play.
[00:39:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:39:25] Speaker B: And we did get some feedback on that. So continuing with Nathan's comment, Nathan said rope is actually using an original meaning of the f slur, which was, until shockingly recently, like the end of the last century, a system in which older boys at british boarding schools would take younger boys as their servants. This was thought to be essential to toughening up boys for adult life. That's very british. The system was rife with physical and sexual abuse, which were largely ignored or even encouraged by the adults. This was distorted sexuality. And the fact that younger boys took a subservient, stereotypical feminine role, that was the basis for the f slur we have today.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: Makes sense.
[00:40:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:40:11] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, that. That. I can. That as a backstory or, you know, as an etymology, I guess. Totally. I could. I could see that. And also you can see that, like, the derivations of that with things like hazing and, like fraternities and that kind of thing.
[00:40:27] Speaker B: So the play is not explicitly saying that Brandon had a sexual relationship with Kenneth, but it might be implying it. I hesitate to emphasize the line's importance because it's a one off, and I'm not sure how open, folks. In 1921.
[00:40:41] Speaker A: Sorry. Brandon had a sexual relationship with Kenneth. Which. Who's Kenneth?
[00:40:45] Speaker B: Kenneth is the other boy whose name. I don't remember.
[00:40:50] Speaker A: The other person who was at the party.
[00:40:51] Speaker B: Yes. Whose name was in the movie was.
[00:40:55] Speaker A: No, it was Kenneth in the movie.
[00:40:57] Speaker B: Was it?
[00:40:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Yeah, Kenneth was the other guy who was Janet's old boyfriend, who. Brandon was trying to get them back together or whatever. Yeah, I'm pretty sure his name was Kenneth in the movie. I just forgot who that was because he's only in the movie very briefly. So.
[00:41:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:41:10] Speaker A: Okay. Sorry.
[00:41:12] Speaker B: I hesitate to emphasize the line's importance, because it's a one off, and I'm not sure how open folks in 1929 were about the dark side of british boarding schools. However, I do think the relationship of Brandon and Philip feels like it had that same sort of dynamic with Brandon as the older boy. So I wonder if this is meant as a parallel. Very well. I could definitely see that. And then on the same topic, we also had a comment from Eric, who said, f slurring for someone at school is an older british thing where younger students would do things for older students, sort of like servants, cleaning, making their fires, cooking, that kind of thing. More in boarding schools than day schools. No homosexual connotation there.
[00:42:01] Speaker A: Well, according to our previous commenter, there.
[00:42:02] Speaker B: Was, but we're gonna keep reading.
Make advances. I don't know of any other meaning other than trying to make someone's acquaintance or flirting, which this is.
[00:42:13] Speaker A: In reference. We.
[00:42:14] Speaker B: There was a different thing.
[00:42:15] Speaker A: We had a question about where it said that the butler, that Brandon and Philip had had a remark about how they made advances.
[00:42:23] Speaker B: Yes. That was part of his character description, was that his employers sometimes made advances to him.
[00:42:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:42:30] Speaker B: Eric went on to say, which is odd, because the playwright vehemently denied that Brandon and Philip were in a relationship or gay. Though if he did say, he did say, if anyone, it was Rupert who does show a bunch of kind of foppish stereotypes, which was in the character.
[00:42:45] Speaker A: Or the stage direction for Rupert.
[00:42:48] Speaker B: So I'm not sure why he'd put such an overt reference in there, which makes me think I'm missing something.
And then Nathan responded to this comment and said, while you're right about the genesis of the Ephsler, I think it is incorrect to say it has no homosexual connotations. Those relationships were rife with sexual assault, and it's definitely connected to the modern use of the f slurred.
Eric said, oh, yeah, there was definitely a lot of sexual abuse in those relationships. And I agree. I think it was the genesis for the slur. But in 1929, I don't think it was an explicit gay reference. I think it's more likely it was put in there as a show of dominance, but it's possible it was also a nod to possible homosexuality.
[00:43:34] Speaker A: I think it would have been both.
[00:43:35] Speaker B: Well, probably.
[00:43:37] Speaker A: Well, if the author didn't. The author probably saw, if the playwright did not think that they had been in a good gay relationship or whatever. Maybe that's not what. But all this also comes back to what people consider, like, gay. Like. Like, the playwright.
[00:43:53] Speaker B: This is more complex than just, like, two people of the same same gender.
[00:43:58] Speaker A: Having sexual relationships, because they're very.
In times like these, it wouldn't be absurd to think that somebody think like that, that this playwright could have thought that an older boy forcibly sodomizing a younger boy was not gay, was, in fact, something else entirely. You know what I mean?
[00:44:19] Speaker B: If you look back at the history of what has been considered homosexual or gay throughout time and culture and place, you will get a wide variety of answers. So it is a little more complicated than just were these two engaging in some kind of intimate sexual act?
[00:44:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:41] Speaker B: And Eric came back later and then left another comment and said, finally found the quote I was looking for about this part of the reason. I think the term wasn't used to intentionally hint towards a possible sexual side to Brandon and Kenneth. The relationship is. The playwright Patrick Hamilton really didn't approve of people reading Brandon or Philip as gay. He felt the person playing Brandon had to be sufficiently masculine, otherwise it would, for some strange reason, appear to be a play about homosexuals. He felt the gay role was Rupert's, as he said in the letter, when his brother told him he had been cast as Rupert in a production.
Only snag is the part is really cut out for a pansy. That's charming.
[00:45:26] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:45:26] Speaker B: I do think there could be a sinister connotation here that their gay teacher infected them with warped philosophy, but he also catches and denounces, so it muddles things.
[00:45:37] Speaker A: I think what's going on here is that the playwright, Mister Patrick Hamilton, has maybe not the same definitions of what being gay is, as maybe some other people do. I think we're operating maybe, in that world where he doesn't view, like, sexually abusing if you're a senior in high school, or just equating this for american audiences to whatever the. The boarding school nonsense is. I think he might not say. He might have been, and this is pure speculation. He might look at, like, a senior, like, in high school or whatever boy who is, like, literally engaging in sexual acts with a younger boy under his purview, who is, like, also toting his books around or whatever, and he might not. He might look at that and go, well, that guy's not gay. Or that guy's not even weird, necessarily.
[00:46:31] Speaker B: I mean, I think you could to have an even closer correlation for Americans that some of us might recognize even more if you brought up fraternities a minute ago.
If you have this guy who's in a fraternity, who is hazing another guy, who wants to be in the fraternity. And part of that hazing is some kind of sexual act.
[00:47:01] Speaker A: The guy making him do the sexual act might not think or might not describe himself as gay.
[00:47:06] Speaker B: He might not describe himself as gay. Could it be considered a homosexual act? Maybe by some people.
[00:47:13] Speaker A: And could he even be queer of some flavor?
[00:47:15] Speaker B: Maybe. But he probably is not considering that specific instance to be gay behavior. And probably everyone else that is present there is not considering it gay either. It's like. Like I said, it is far more complicated than just, you know, who is engaging with who.
[00:47:35] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely.
As it's clear here, and I think what makes very clear that his. That Patrick Hamilton's kind of view on homosexuality is, like, not remotely similar to what our modern understanding of homosexuality would be like. You said you found this.
This thing of playwright talking about Brandon. He said he felt that the person playing Brandon had to be sufficiently masculine, otherwise it would, for some strange reason, appear to be a play about homosexuals. You're right. There are no masculine homosexual people. Like, if Brandon's masculine, he couldn't possibly also be homosexual.
[00:48:14] Speaker B: A lot of people still think that.
[00:48:15] Speaker A: I know, but it's just like. It's just absurd. You know what I mean? It's such a clear. Like, it's just. It's so clear that all of these words have such kind of context dependent, time dependent, all these different things, that what is considered gay in one time period isn't another, and all these sort of things, and it's just. It's way more complicated and.
[00:48:37] Speaker B: Right, well, and if we go back to the specific use of the ephsler within the play, I think it could. You know, both things can be true at once. That that is.
It could be a reference to some kind of act that people might consider homosexual, but it can also be true that maybe the playwright, or maybe even the people watching the play in 1929 did not consider it as such.
All those things can be true at the same time.
[00:49:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:49:09] Speaker B: All right. Well, those were all of our comments from Patreon. We have a couple others.
[00:49:14] Speaker A: The other thing that could happen is that Patrick Hamilton could be grappling with his own sexuality. It leaked into his freaking play, and he wasn't able to come to terms with what the play was actually kind of saying about his own relationships and his own sexuality and kind of never came to terms with that. And just, like.
[00:49:31] Speaker B: No, maybe.
[00:49:32] Speaker A: I don't know. I'm purely speculating. I'm just saying, like, there's a million different ways to. Yeah.
[00:49:37] Speaker B: Anyways, I don't know, I did not really do a ton of reading up on Patrick Hamilton, so I could not say.
Anyway, over on Facebook, we had two votes for the movie, zero for the book. Andy said, my thoughts won't differ much from the pod discussion. I find it odd that people involved in the film wrote it off. It's one of my favorite Hitchcock films. The staging, long shots, and direction really bring out the main aspects of the play, enhancing it in many ways, which is why I voted for the film. Special mention for the two actors playing the murderers. They play off each other well and embody the characters.
My year group at college put on the play in the round at ground level to replicate the feel of the film version. My best friend on our course played the professor, and at the time he was always complaining about other students overuse of the term. Breccian, I believe is how that's pronounced. They made the odd decision to stay in freeze frame through the interval, leaving my friend having to sit still in a chair on set for 15 minutes while people got a drink. That's insane. Of course. I turned to the student next to me and loudly proclaimed, the staging is very breccian. He didn't break, but I was in trouble later.
[00:50:53] Speaker A: I don't know what that word means. Do you know what that means?
[00:50:56] Speaker B: I looked it up, and now the meaning of it has completely left my mind.
[00:51:00] Speaker A: Adjective renown. That refers to the theatrical style and techniques of german playwright and poet Bertolt Brecht.
But it doesn't go into works aimed.
[00:51:11] Speaker B: To make audiences aware of the world's social and political realities.
[00:51:16] Speaker A: Also known for their alienation effect in episodic structure, which involves a montage of disconnected scenes and non representational staging.
[00:51:23] Speaker B: So modern theater.
[00:51:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, interesting.
[00:51:27] Speaker B: No shade to modern theater, but also a little bit of shade to modern theater.
On Twitter, we didn't have any comments. We did have one vote for the movie, none for the book. On Instagram, we had four votes for the movie and zero for the book. Emily Dinkulik said, my vote goes to the movie, since I'm a huge fan of Hitchcock and have seen a good portion of his filmography.
You guys discussed in the prequel episode that the movie has homosexual undertones. I could see Brandon being gay. Not sure about Philip. There is something about Brandon's mannerisms and the way he talks that doesn't sound like a straight guy speaking.
That could just be the age of the source material.
[00:52:12] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't.
The things that to me in the film, that. Okay, he's about to go on to it here, I say, was the reasons I read Brandon and Philip as gay had very little to do with how.
[00:52:24] Speaker B: They talked or acted really had very little to do with anything about them.
[00:52:28] Speaker A: As individuals and more so to do with the way they interacted with each other.
[00:52:33] Speaker B: Furthermore, when Brandon and Philip are arguing, they come across as a married couple. And if by some chance they are.
[00:52:39] Speaker A: A couple, yeah, that's what to me comes across is their relationship. And the the way they interact feels like a couple in some ways.
[00:52:49] Speaker B: They feel like they're in a toxic relationship.
[00:52:52] Speaker A: Yes, they feel, yes, it very much feels like they're in a very toxic relationship.
[00:52:56] Speaker B: Which, and to be fair, you can also be in a toxic relationship with a non romantic, toxic friendship. Absolutely toxic friendship, toxic roommateship, acquaintance. All of those things can happen.
And if by some chance they are a couple, the last scene and the dialogue delivered by James Stewart sounds like an anti gay message. At least that's how I interpreted it. I know his character was referring to the crime they committed, but I couldn't help seeing it as against the same sex relationship in 19 Forty's society.
Yeah, I guess if you went in perceiving them as a couple, then I think you could potentially read that meaning into yeah, I don't think there's nothing there.
[00:53:46] Speaker A: I didn't get that necessarily, but I don't think there's nothing there. Like I think, I think you could.
[00:53:51] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's definitely an interesting read on.
[00:53:53] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.
[00:53:55] Speaker B: Aside from that, the movie still holds up as a great thriller. The only nitpick I had with rewatching the movie was the scream at the beginning, which was poorly delivered.
[00:54:03] Speaker A: We agree.
[00:54:04] Speaker B: Much love to both of you and keep up the great work.
[00:54:07] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:54:08] Speaker B: And then over on Goodreads we had one vote for the movie, zero for the book. And Miko said, I feel like the movie improves the play in multiple ways, but mainly I think it flows much better. For example, at the beginning there was a lot of, as you know, dialogue between the murderers establishing things. The movie's dialogue also feels much more natural and subtle compared to the oh, I have a body in the chest. Haha. Just joking of the play. I also did not really care for that aspect of the play.
John Dahl as Brandon Shaw stole the show. I personally also enjoyed Janet, both the character and the actress. She has a couple good eye rolls in the background when Brandon is butting into the conversation.
Rupert's stance about murder feels like the worst choice of the movie, especially how he flips in the end like you never considered that the outcome of thinking murdering inferiors is fine would be murderous. Weren't you supposed to be smart? He is, but he's too smart.
[00:55:11] Speaker A: Yes, that's the problem.
[00:55:12] Speaker B: He's smart.
[00:55:12] Speaker A: He's too smart. Which is why.
[00:55:14] Speaker B: Which brings him right back around him being stupid.
[00:55:17] Speaker A: Yep. And not realizing that the things he say could affect things and matter and people could. Yeah, we again, we already discussed also.
[00:55:26] Speaker B: Why is the play called rope? It's such an inconsequential part of the play that I believe Patrick Hamilton intended the murder to happen like the Bobby Frank's murderers planned. Strangling with one person holding each end of the rope. Making the rope a bigger part of the movie was a good choice.
[00:55:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Cause you mentioned in the play you weren't sure if the rope with the books and stuff was even the same.
[00:55:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I wasn't sure how heavily it was supposed to factor in.
[00:55:51] Speaker A: Whereas the movie makes it very clear.
[00:55:52] Speaker B: That the rope is important. And I was waiting for the rope to be important as I was reading the play, the titular rope, as it were.
There appears to be a setup for Ruperts suspicions in the play. Very early on theres a phone call that Phillip answers. Presumably due to the storm he cannot hear anything. But Brandon arrives and comments will you put down the receiver? Youre telling London youre afraid.
I assume this and phillips yell just prior to put the lights out is what Rupert heard. I dont even remember this or connect it to ruperts call when I read the play. And it didnt help that the play couldnt keep the time of the call consistent quarter to eight or quarter to nine. Yeah, that's what you thought. That was kind of the same experience that I had that by the time I got to the end of the play I had completely forgotten that that happened because so little was made of it.
Miko's last comment here was seeing the play performed would probably make me like it more. But still the movie wins.
[00:56:55] Speaker A: There you go.
[00:56:56] Speaker B: So our winner this time was the movie with eleven votes to the books.
[00:57:03] Speaker A: All right, thank you all very much for all that very detailed feedback. We really do. I love hearing what people have to say and getting discussed. It's maybe my favorite part of the podcast, mainly because we don't have to do any work for it. We just get to read and react.
[00:57:17] Speaker B: That's true. That is true. And I will say if I ever were to get the chance to see this play performed live, I would be interested.
[00:57:26] Speaker A: Oh yeah, I would absolutely go see it. Like if our.
[00:57:28] Speaker B: If our local theater did than to see, like, how I feel about it, watching it.
[00:57:34] Speaker A: That'd be interesting to see if they make. Because you've read it, it'd be interesting to see if they did make any changes, like based on the movie, how you talked about making the rope, a more prominent piece or some of the other changes that the film made, if a modern version of the play would do that or not. So, yeah. All right. We do not have a learning things segment this week because we had so much good listener feedback. But we do have our preview. And we're going to start first with Vampire Academy, the book.
[00:58:02] Speaker C: When was the last time you ate?
[00:58:04] Speaker B: Are you sure about this?
[00:58:06] Speaker C: Bon appetit.
[00:58:11] Speaker A: Thanks.
[00:58:13] Speaker C: What are friends for?
I should probably point out that my best friend, Lyssa Dragomir, is a royal member of an ancient race. And, yeah, like most creatures with fangs, they live off blood.
My name is Rose Hathaway, and I've been sworn to protect the royal bloodline with my life.
[00:58:30] Speaker B: Look alive. Rose Hathaway is wild, dangerous, insubordinate.
[00:58:35] Speaker C: Right here, folks. Right here.
[00:58:38] Speaker B: I heard you were good at taking.
[00:58:39] Speaker A: On two guys at once.
[00:58:41] Speaker C: And this is Vampire Academy.
[00:58:43] Speaker B: Vampire Academy is a young adult urban fantasy novel by american author Rochelle Mead. And it is the first book in a series of six.
And if you're into urban fantasy, you might recognize some of Mead's other work. If you're not into urban fantasy, you probably won't. But she also wrote the Georgina Kincaid series, the Dark Swan series, and the Bloodline series, which is a vampire Academy spin off. I think Vampire Academy was probably her biggest series out of everything. I think.
[00:59:20] Speaker A: I had never heard of it, so I don't. Yeah, I've never heard of any of those.
[00:59:24] Speaker B: So Vampire Academy borrows some pretty specific creature names from eastern european folklore. I started Googling as soon as I encountered these as I was reading because I wanted to know if she was making shit up or if it was. But it actually is, like, stuff from eastern european folklore.
[00:59:45] Speaker A: I have heard of these. I think they show up a lot of times in, like, fantasy novel, like, video games and stuff.
[00:59:52] Speaker B: I would not be surprised if you've encountered them in, like, video games.
[00:59:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I know. Dampier. And one, at least two of these I have seen mentioned in, like, video games and stuff.
[01:00:02] Speaker B: So I just wanted to give, like, a brief overview of what those were. So she uses three different creatures. The first one is the moroi, which is a type of vampire or ghost from romanian folklore. And as with most concepts in folklore, the exact characteristics that we're ascribing to this creature are varied from source to source, but in some versions, it's like the phantom of a dead person that leaves the grave to draw energy from the living, hence the vampire connotation.
[01:00:35] Speaker A: They're energy vampires?
[01:00:36] Speaker B: Yes, because a vampire doesn't always need to be drinking blood. Sometimes they absorb other things.
Sometimes they're Colin Robinson, sometimes they are Rochelle meads. Moroi are mortal vampires who possess elemental magic. So they need blood to live.
So far not clear why they need blood to live, but they have normal lifespans. Yeah, they're not immortal. They don't live forever.
She also uses the dampir, which is a mythical creature from balkan folklore that's often said to be the result of a union between a vampire and a human. And Mede actually stayed pretty close to the source material on this one. Her dampirs can be the offspring of a human and a maroi or a dampir and a maroi. And her dompirs possess increased strength and speed and basically serve as, like, bodyguards for the maroi.
[01:01:38] Speaker A: So she was creating, like, characters, classes.
[01:01:41] Speaker B: Yes, basically. Or like the dompyr or her warrior.
[01:01:45] Speaker A: Class or divergent clauses or whatever.
[01:01:48] Speaker B: Oh, I have.
I have many comparisons to make to many different things with this series and the last one that she uses, or at least I have not encountered any other mythological creatures in this yet. I'm about halfway through the book as the strigoi.
Strigoi comes from romanian mythology, and they are troubled spirits that are said to have risen from the grave.
So this is kind of our most solid link to what we now think of as a vampire. It's thought that Bram Stoker's Dracula was like a modern interpretation of the strigoi myth.
And in vampire academy, the strigoi are like the big bads. I have not actually met any yet, but I have heard much about them, and they are always hunting Moroi to turn them into strigoi as well.
And they're also the only immortal creatures in the novel.
[01:02:54] Speaker A: There you go. I think I realized where I may have heard a lot of these from. I think they show up in the witcher.
[01:02:59] Speaker B: That does not surprise me, because it's based on. Because the witcher. Yeah, is very steeped in, like, eastern european country.
[01:03:06] Speaker A: Like, I can't remember, but, like, wherever the author's from. Poland, maybe, or whatever. But, yeah, it's. It's. It's Europe. Eastern european, yeah. Kind of like folklore stuff for the most part there, all the monsters come from so I think a lot of those have showed up in the witcher.
[01:03:18] Speaker B: Oh. So the book did receive positive reviews. It has a Goodreads average of 4.19 out of five.
It was listed on the list of quick picks for reluctant young adult readers and recommended by a book list, teenbooks, two.com, and voice of youth advocates.
[01:03:41] Speaker A: So there you go.
[01:03:43] Speaker B: People liked it.
[01:03:45] Speaker A: It was popular.
[01:03:46] Speaker B: At least it was popular at one time.
[01:03:50] Speaker A: Never, never like a world sensation like twilight or, right.
[01:03:53] Speaker B: Or divergent year in this.
But hang on, I imagine, yeah, this came out in 2007. The book did the first book. So, like, very squarely within the twilight heyday.
[01:04:11] Speaker A: Absolutely.
All right, time now to learn a little bit more about Vampire Academy. The film Lissa is a possible successor to the throne.
[01:04:21] Speaker C: She'd know by now. With us, weird doesn't begin to cover it.
Oh my God.
I don't know what's gonna happen tonight. At this point, I can't remember who loves us and who hates us. Let's make tonight our bitch.
[01:04:41] Speaker A: There's a bigger threat still out there. Let's just keep our heads down when.
[01:04:44] Speaker B: We stay under the radar.
[01:04:47] Speaker C: How's that under the radar plan working out, Highness?
[01:04:50] Speaker B: Not so much.
[01:04:53] Speaker A: Vampire Academy is a 2014 film directed by Mark Waters, who we've actually done a film from before because he directed Freaky Friday, Mean Girls, the Spiderwick Chronicles, and Mister Popper's penguins, among others. Very diverse category, but a lot, some.
A fair amount of adaptations in there. And this film, this is really interesting to me, is written by Mark's older brother, Daniel Waters, who's a screenwriter who did Heathers, which I've never seen, but it's kind of a cult classic. Hudson Hawk, which is kind of a notoriously weird Bruce Willis movie from the it's like a. I think it's almost like a comedy film noir kind of thing. I've never seen it, but I've heard it talked about Batman returns and demolition man, among others. He also has a very kind of chaotic filmography. The film stars Zoe Deutsch, Lucy Fry, Danila Kozlowski, Dominic Sherwood, Cameron Monahan, Sammy Gale, Sarah Hyland, Claire Foy, Edward Holcroft, Chris Mason, Jolie Richardson, Olga Kurylenko, and Gabriel Byrne.
It has a 17% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 31 on Metacritic, and a 5.4 out of ten on IMDb.
And it made $15.4 million against a budget of 30 million.
[01:06:13] Speaker B: Woof.
[01:06:14] Speaker A: Pretty huge bomb, both critically and box office wise. It was nominated for two teen choice awards for best comedy and best comedy actress for Zoey Deutsch, you know, which is interesting. Cause is the novel a comedy?
[01:06:29] Speaker B: I would not have called it a comedy.
[01:06:34] Speaker A: The film, I'm not sure. I don't know it. Comedy on IMDb was like the fourth, like, genre description. It was like fantasy, whatever, coming of age, something. And then, like, comedy was on there. So maybe the movie decided to go more of like a little satirical or campy or something. I don't know. No idea.
[01:06:55] Speaker B: I mean, I will say that having read what I've read so far, I think it could lend itself well to camp.
[01:07:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm hoping it's camp. That's what I'm hoping is that it's got all these terrible reviews and stuff because everybody was just like, oh, it's like bad Twilight, whatever. But actually it's going to be like peak camp and going to be really good. That's my secret hope is that surprise. Vampire Academy 2014 is this great camp cult masterpiece that people are sleeping on. I doubt that's going to be the case, but I'm hoping that's the case.
You never know. Sometimes that happens. So Prager Entertainment optioned the rights for the book, for the series actually in 2010, and they announced that the Waters brothers would be writing and directing in 2012. I don't actually don't have a ton of notes about this because there just wasn't that much. And I could not be bothered to go do a bunch of research on Vampire Academy. Early in the production process, the film was apparently retitled to Vampire Academy Blood Sisters. And Wikipedia said that was the books, the first book's actual title. Is that not.
[01:08:00] Speaker B: That did not come up.
[01:08:02] Speaker A: Okay. Because when I was looking. Or maybe the book got retitled to reflect the movie. I don't know.
[01:08:06] Speaker B: Or. Yeah, or I did see, I saw like a movie poster that said that.
[01:08:12] Speaker A: Well, so, okay, so the movie was retitled at one point in production to Vampire Academy Blood sisters because they were gonna make a series and they wanted each movie to have its own, like, subtitle. Then later on in the production process, they reverted that back to just vampire Academy academy. I don't know how far in the production process. And again, I couldn't be bothered to go look, my guess would be that maybe they were gonna do vampire Academy blood sisters when they were planning to make a whole series. And then at some point in the production process they realized either this sucks or this is gonna bomb. Or maybe while it was bombing, they reverted. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know. Or maybe after it bombed even. They reverted the name back, I have no idea. But they changed it back to just Vampire Academy, probably because they knew they weren't going to make sequels.
You didn't mention it. There is another adaptation to this. Peacock made a series like two years ago, I think, that also got canceled. But there is a tv version of this from 2022 that I believe also got canceled after one or two seasons. But I could be wrong about that. So the exteriors of the academy were filmed at Charterhouse school in Surrey in England. And Mark Waters said when he saw as, quote, as soon as I saw that courtyard, I had that exhilarating feeling of everything locking into place. This school was not just my mental image of St. Vladimir's, it was better.
And if you look this up, this thing has, this. This school has appeared in quite a few tv shows and films over the year. Over the years. It's a. It's one of those schools that just looks like. Yeah, an old. It looks like Hogwarts or whatever.
[01:09:48] Speaker B: Looks like a fantasy school.
[01:09:51] Speaker A: So there are sihounds in the film. I don't know what the thing said. And the sigh hounds in the film were originally filmed using trained dogs, but Waters was not happy with how they looked, so they replaced them with CGI dogs that were apparently modeled off a drawing that Rochelle Meade made for waters.
[01:10:09] Speaker B: I'm so excited about that.
[01:10:11] Speaker A: I'm sure those are gonna look great.
[01:10:12] Speaker B: I'm so excited.
[01:10:14] Speaker A: This was supposedly the film. I think it is the film debut for Lucy Fry, who's one of the main characters, but also supposedly the film debut for Anya Taylor Joy. She has an uncredited cameo as Feeder girl, but apparently this scene was deleted in the final cut of the film. So she doesn't actually appear in the film, but she filmed a scene for the movie in her first role.
There is an actor or an author cameo in the film.
Rochelle Mead. You can see her walking past the doors after Mister Meisner's class. Supposedly, according to INDB. This is another InDB trivia fact. Director Mark Waters wanted to give the franchise a second chance with a sequel, specifically vampire Academy. Frostbite. I guess that's the second book.
[01:11:02] Speaker B: I believe that is the name of the second book. Yeah, it's frostbite.
[01:11:05] Speaker A: Prager Entertainment agreed to fund the film on the condition that Waters could get fans to raise the necessary one point million on their own as a proof of support for the film. What an Indiegogo campaign was started and ran from August of 2014 to September of 2014, but fans were only able to raise $250,000 by the end of the month, leading to Prager entertainment canceling plans for a sequel.
So getting to some critical reviews. First off, this film was not screened for critics, meaning they didn't get early advanced screening. Obviously they went and saw it when it came out, but they didn't do an advanced screening for critics, which is often a sign that it's not very good. It's not good because they don't want a bunch of critics giving it zero stars before it comes out and getting people not going to see it.
Writing for Rolling Stone, Peter Travers gave the film zero out of four stars, saying, quote, one idea mixed with lame jokes and stretched beyond coherence. Vampire Academy doesn't need a review. It needs a stake in the heart.
[01:12:06] Speaker B: Wow.
[01:12:07] Speaker A: Dennis Harvey for Variety said, quote, it's the crassest possible mashup of Harry Potter and Twilight elements and compared it negatively to both.
Manola Dargis for the New York Times said, quote, mister Waters doesn't seem especially interested in the supernatural parts of Vampire Academy, and he clearly didn't have the budget to make what little hocus pocus is there magical.
And the performances also received mixed response. Mixed responses from critics with Susan Wazzlechina. I don't know. It's a polish name, I think, that I cannot pronounce. I'm sorry. I've had this name. I gotta look this up because she shows up every now and then. Writing for Roger Ebert, she had a negative review for Deutsch's performance, comparing it to Elliot Page's performance in Juno, but, like, a bad version of that, basically.
Writing for the New York Daily News, Jordan Hoffman called her work the film's quote, unquote breakout performance, and actually positively compared it to Elliot Page's performance in Juno.
[01:13:12] Speaker B: Okay, hang on, hang on.
[01:13:15] Speaker A: Two different critics compared it to Elliot Page in Juno.
[01:13:18] Speaker B: I am interested to see.
I don't think I've seen Juno since it came out. Yeah, but I'm interested to understand why they would make that comparison specifically.
[01:13:32] Speaker A: My guess is because of how, like, I think. I think Juno came out a few years before this, like, relatively close to it. And it's the, like, go to example of, like, a snarky, sarcastic lead.
[01:13:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess would be my guess. Because to me, the more obvious comparison is twilight.
[01:13:53] Speaker A: I haven't seen the film, so I don't know. But my guess, comparing it to Elliot Page's performance in Juno. I've seen Juno. It's. I saw it when it. Back when it came out of. And Paige's performance in that is like very snarky, kind of like sarcastic. Sarcastic and not really like an actual tv.
[01:14:10] Speaker B: That's fair. I am interested to, like, watch it and see if I can figure out exactly what prompted that comparison, specifically. Two different critics. Yeah.
[01:14:21] Speaker A: But Hoffman, who gave a positive comparison to Paige's performance, did criticize Gabrielle Byrne's performance as, quote, obligatory slumming, end quote, and described Kozlowski's acting as, quote, so expressionless that he can, in all honesty now say that he never acted in anything called Vampire Academy.
Also criticizing Byrne, Richardson and Kurilenko and Travis Travers, who was the critic writing for rolling stone earlier, also panned the Bern, Richardson and Kurilenko, saying, quote, they are bringing shame on all of their reputations.
[01:15:02] Speaker B: I love film critics. Yeah, what a dramatic bunch.
[01:15:06] Speaker A: Yes.
So not good reviews all around. We wanted to remind you, you can do us all a favor by hanging over Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, goodreads, threads, any of those places interact. We'd love to hear what you have to say. Drop us a five star rating, write us a nice little review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify wherever you listen to us, and you can support us on Patreon. Patreon.com thisfilmislit get access to bonus content. We're gonna be doing our Addams family episodes here very shortly for October. But if you support us at the $15 and up level, you get priority patron request recommendation, whatever you want to call it. And this one is a Patron request.
[01:15:41] Speaker B: Yes, this was a request from Nathan, who I can only assume wants to torture us.
[01:15:47] Speaker A: I think this is a, this is a. I want you to rip on this ridiculous thing. Which is why I'm defiantly, I'm defiantly insistent on finding it to be peak camp and actually good.
[01:16:02] Speaker B: I don't have a ton of hope based on what I've read so far.
[01:16:06] Speaker A: Yeah, we'll see.
[01:16:08] Speaker B: We'll see.
[01:16:09] Speaker A: Katie, where could people watch it?
[01:16:11] Speaker B: Well, as always, you can check with your local library or a local video rental store if you still have one.
Other than that, if you're not going to sail the high seas, you're going to have to pay to watch this because it's not streaming with a subscription anywhere, but you can rent it for around $4 from Apple TV, Amazon, YouTube, or Fandango at home.
[01:16:35] Speaker A: There you go. Go check out vampire Academy. Cause in one week's time, we'll be talking about it. Until that time, guys, gals, non binary pals, and everybody else, keep reading books, watching movies, and keep being.
