Duel

Summary

Blank Check with Griffin & David – Episode: Duel (January 5, 2025)

Hosts: Griffin Newman and David Sims
Producer: Ben Hosley
Description: In this episode, Griffin and David dive deep into Steven Spielberg's early career through his groundbreaking TV movie, Duel. They explore the film's intricacies, Spielberg's formative years, and the lasting impact of Duel on his illustrious career.

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Introduction

Blank Check with Griffin & David marks the beginning of its 10th year with a special focus on Steven Spielberg's early work, particularly his seminal television film, Duel. Hosts Griffin Newman and David Sims, along with producer Ben Hosley, embark on an insightful journey to dissect this underrated masterpiece and its significance in Spielberg's repertoire.

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Overview of Duel

Duel is a 1971 TV movie directed by Steven Spielberg, which later received a theatrical release due to its success. The film centers on a man, portrayed by Dennis Weaver, who is relentlessly chased by a mysterious truck driver on a remote highway.

Notable Quote:

• Griffin (00:22): "The killer's weapon. A 40-ton truck. The victim's only defense. A startling podcast trap."

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Spielberg's Early Career

The hosts delve into Spielberg’s beginnings, highlighting how Duel was his first major directorial effort. They discuss the challenges Spielberg faced when transitioning from aspiring filmmaker to working within the constraints of a TV movie format.

Key Points:

• Spielberg's tight-lipped nature about his personal life until recently.
• The influence of his parents and early experiences on his filmmaking style.
• The technical and creative limitations of TV production in the early '70s.

Notable Quote:

• David (16:08): "Steven Spielberg, born to parents Paul Dano and Michelle Williams... there's been some controversy over his birthday because it's often recorded as happening in 1947."

---

Analysis of Duel

Griffin and David provide an in-depth analysis of Duel, examining its narrative structure, character development, and thematic elements. They appreciate the film's ability to generate suspense and horror without relying on supernatural elements.

Key Points:

• The ambiguity of the truck driver’s motives adds to the film’s tension.
• Spielberg’s use of limited dialogue and reliance on visual storytelling.
• The psychological portrayal of Dennis Weaver’s character as an "everyman" facing inexplicable terror.

Notable Quotes:

• David (12:01): "He's had a couple of hits in those '70s '80s range for sure."
• Griffin (80:37): "This isn't supernatural. This is some guy."

---

Filmmaking Techniques

The discussion highlights Spielberg's innovative camera work and editing techniques in Duel. They commend his ability to create a cinematic experience within the confines of a television production.

Key Points:

• Strategic camera placements, including shots mounted on the truck and car.
• The effective use of silence and minimalistic dialogue to heighten tension.
• John Williams’ score and its role in augmenting the film's suspense.

Notable Quote:

• Griffin (70:53): "He has better action sequences later in his career, but I'd argue those are largely a product of he knows how to build a better movie around those sequences."

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Personal Anecdotes and Reflections

The hosts share personal stories related to the themes of road rage and the fear of being followed, drawing parallels between their experiences and the film's narrative.

Key Points:

• Ben recounts a frightening encounter with a tractor-trailer that echoed the movie’s central premise.
• Griffin reflects on his own discomfort with driving and how Duel reinforces his anxieties.
• David discusses the universal fear of unexpected threats while on the road.

Notable Quotes:

• Ben (92:03): "We almost crashed into that. Truly. It was like the truck really almost led us to crash."
• Griffin (84:52): "I am terrified at the... driving."

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Comparisons and Legacy

Griffin and David compare Duel to Spielberg’s later works, such as Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, while also referencing Dennis Weaver’s performances in other films like Unhinged.

Key Points:

• Duel as a precursor to Spielberg's ability to craft suspenseful, character-driven narratives.
• The evolution of Spielberg’s filmmaking from television to blockbuster cinema.
• Dennis Weaver’s portrayal in Duel compared to his roles in other genres.

Notable Quotes:

• Griffin (71:03): "I do think you watch this, and in the construction of the big showcase moments, the big set pieces, I would contend, like, he arrived fully formed as an action filmmaker."
• David (83:17): "We're all assuming right, it'll squeeze in."

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Conclusion

The episode concludes with reflections on the enduring impact of Duel and its importance in understanding Spielberg's foundational skills as a director. Griffin and David express excitement for their upcoming deep dives into Spielberg’s filmography, promising more insightful discussions in future episodes.

Notable Quote:

• Griffin (135:19): "Year of miracles. Soundboard is back. Kim Ganday references out the butt. Early Spielberg Jelly trilogy on Patreon. It's 2025. Year of Miracles."

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Final Thoughts

Duel stands as a testament to Steven Spielberg’s innate storytelling prowess and his ability to evoke fear and suspense through simplicity and innovative filmmaking techniques. This episode of Blank Check with Griffin & David not only celebrates an often-overlooked gem in Spielberg’s career but also sets the stage for a comprehensive examination of his subsequent works. Whether you’re a lifelong cinephile or new to Spielberg’s films, this episode offers valuable insights into the making of a classic thriller and the early signs of a legendary filmmaker.

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Note: Advertisements, sponsorship messages, and unrelated segments were excluded from this summary to maintain focus on the episode's core content.

Transcript

[David]

Blank check with Griffin and David. Blank check with Griffin and David.

[Griffin]

Don't know what to say or to expect.

[David]

All you need to know is that the name of the shadow is Blackjack.

[Griffin]

The killer's weapon. A 40 ton truck. The victim's only defense. A startling podcast trap. I don't know if that's really.

[David]

Spoiler alert.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Kind of giving away his one move in like minute 82.

[Griffin]

I was gonna say that's the last minute. It's not like that. Makes it sound like the movie is him constructing an elaborate trap.

[David]

Right. What if a truck guy tried to kill the most ingenious trapper?

[Griffin]

Right, right, right.

[David]

It's like Weaver's behind the wheel. What he doesn't know is that I'm really good at setting traps for trucks.

[Griffin]

Well, that's almost the eventual sequel. Duel versus Craven the Hunter. What if this truck we're going after. Craven the hunter, the greatest trap artist.

[David]

Trapper John MD to go after him.

[Griffin]

Yeah. He's probably the second best trapper I know.

[Ben]

I think Young thug is definitely one of our best trap artists.

[Griffin]

Isn't it crazy David, to think David.

[David]

He could just go after.

[Griffin]

I was waiting for Ben to drop him with that. Yes.

[David]

Like the M. Night Shyamalan film truck.

[Griffin]

Okay, so here's the film we're pitching. It's a legacyquel to Duel.

[David]

Yes. In which the going off of a poster. That exists. That's not that famous.

[Griffin]

Somehow the 40 ton truck has returned the flammable truck itself.

[David]

Right. Even though it blew up. It's back. Spoiler alert.

[Griffin]

Somehow. And it has to fight a team of good guys represented by the butcher. Mr. Trapp himself.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

Craven the hunter.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

What was the joke he made of a trap artist?

[Ben]

Young Thug.

[David]

Young Thug, Trapper John and Trapper John.

[Griffin]

MT I think that's the four.

[David]

That's the Mount Rushmore of trapping.

[Griffin]

Correct. This is, above all else, a movie about trapping.

[David]

It's just not at all. This is a terrible tangent. Start a miniseries.

[Griffin]

The quotes were not good either.

[David]

No. The quotes of this movie are like. Yeah, what's the matter with this guy?

[Griffin]

Exactly. Yeah. Ready? Let me try. Let me try a quote podcast.

[David]

That's pretty good.

[Griffin]

That's me saying the word podcast. In lieu of a horn.

[Ben]

We could also. We could always do a. A pickup later where it's like your inner monologue.

[Griffin]

Oh, sure.

[Ben]

Where you're thinking about.

[Griffin]

Okay, ready? Ready.

[David]

Here's really. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Come on now. Start the podcast. There's a lot to talk about.

[David]

Go ahead.

[Griffin]

In the film Duel Duel. Duel.

[David]

Jewel.

[Griffin]

Duel.

[David]

As the sort of Brits might say.

[Griffin]

Richard Duel.

[David]

Richard Duel.

[Griffin]

This is Blank Check with Griffin and David. I'm Griffin.

[David]

I'm David.

[Griffin]

It's a podcast about filmographies. Directors who have massive success early on in their careers and are given a series of blank checks, make whatever crazy passion products they want. Sometimes those checks clear and sometimes they bounce, baby. It is January 1st or no, it's January 5th. It's January 5th.

[David]

But it's the dawn of a new.

[Griffin]

Year, and this year happens to be the 10th year of Blank Check. This is the start of our 10th year. What you're listening to is the beginning of our 10th year. And thus we felt, what better way to kick it off than with six year old unfinished business?

[David]

Now you guys can't complain anymore.

[Griffin]

Now you have no grounds to complain. There's nothing you can complain about anymore.

[David]

Certainly not in 2025. No, nothing to complain about.

[Griffin]

The year where everything works. I'm calling it.

[David]

You're calling it. I wish you wouldn't.

[Griffin]

I think everything's going to work in 2025. All my ingenious traps I set. We're talking about.

[David]

I think it's eight years ago, Griffin, that we covered.

[Griffin]

We did in 2017. Is that right?

[David]

The first episode was indeed January 2017.

[Griffin]

So you know what's crazy?

[David]

We were kicking off a certain presidency both times. Yes. Is that what you're gonna say?

[Griffin]

Yep.

[David]

Yep. It's crazy.

[Griffin]

That's wild. I didn't realize it lined up that.

[David]

It'S been eight years.

[Griffin]

It's been eight long years since we.

[David]

On this podcast covered the films of Steven Spielberg. But last time we threw a CR curveball.

[Griffin]

We did.

[David]

And we started in the middle of his career.

[Griffin]

We called Spielberg the DreamWorks years.

[David]

We didn't know what we were doing back then.

[Griffin]

No idea what we were doing.

[David]

And we covered all of Steven Spielberg's films, starting with the Lost World, Jurassic park, going all the way through to what seemed like the crowning Apex final film he would ever make, the BFG. Since then, he's made like 18 more movies. We've covered all of those. Yes, but we've never covered everything leading up to Jurassic park in Schindler's List.

[Griffin]

Look, what better way to start off our 10th year than to say, I had always thought that Lost World, the Jurassic park sequel, was his first film ever? And we found out, I recently found out, that in fact, the first half of his career was basically a series of the greatest successes any director has had.

[David]

He's had a couple of hits in those 70s 80s range for sure. And we're going to talk about the oddies.

[Griffin]

Blank check. I said this already. Oh, the miniseries titled Podrasic Cast.

[David]

Is that right?

[Griffin]

I didn't remember Podrasic Cast.

[David]

Okay, good for us. One more time. Wow. We're being run off the road for that title.

[Griffin]

Ben informed us that it took 40 minutes to properly load the truck sounds into his sound.

[Ben]

Well, I had to. I had to track down the right sounds. You know, it's very important. It's not just any kind of truck horn. It's got to be the right one.

[Griffin]

Well, you're an artist. Producer. Ben.

[Ben]

Yes.

[Griffin]

AKA oh boy. No. Here's what I'm going to do. Just one of them.

[David]

Okay.

[Griffin]

Warhols.

[David]

You know what? That's a good way to do it if you just did one.

[Griffin]

This is a thing I'm doing for year 10, 2025.

[David]

Year of Ben has one nickname per episode.

[Griffin]

Exactly. I think that's a nice way to look back and look forward.

[Ben]

I love that.

[David]

What is Ben's David lynch name?

[Griffin]

Great question.

[Ben]

Huh.

[David]

Figure it out later.

[Griffin]

Yep.

[David]

We're here to talk about.

[Griffin]

That will be how we end 2024.

[David]

Fine.

[Griffin]

You will have heard it by this point.

[David]

The films of Steven Spielberg starting with this week's film Jewel.

[Griffin]

No, a bit of a controversial. Not really start in terms of. There is some debate, you know. Have you watched the John Williams Disney documentary yet?

[David]

No.

[Griffin]

He goes out of his way. Spielberg to say my first movie Sugar Land Express.

[David]

Which I understand because I think at the time that's what it. It was. That was his first cinematic release.

[Griffin]

Yep. And we can dig into this a bit.

[David]

And back then they didn't have Peacock, you know and Paramount plus.

[Griffin]

God, I can't even imagine.

[David]

The lines were not blurry. It was like if you're a TV movie. Well then that was on tv. You didn't get it.

[Griffin]

Imagine what it must have been like to live through an era without Peacock. You don't even get to see super sized cuts of the Office.

[David]

I don't remember.

[Griffin]

I don't remember. I mean, thank God I was born in the year 2020 and I never had to witness it. I entered humanity just.

[David]

It is weird to think that my children will never know. Right? Well they might. I mean Peacock may not make it. Like I'm not. I'm not trying to be rude to Peacock, but it could leave.

[Griffin]

I shuddered a thing.

[David]

But. But they certainly arrived in a world with Peacock. You have.

[Griffin]

You have three Post Peacock children insane. That's a way to think about a demarcation of time. It's been eight years since we covered Spielberg and five years since Peacock launched. It's Bant.

[David]

No, April 2020.

[Griffin]

Yeah, yeah.

[David]

Named after the NBC logo. I had no idea.

[Griffin]

Look, the world was grieving. A global pandemic had us in its grips. And NBC Universal said, we have the cure.

[David]

Peacock.

[Griffin]

There's no vaccine yet, but there is a vaccine for the soul, and it's called Peacock. It's a great way to start what's probably one of our biggest series we've ever done.

[David]

10Th Anniversary Duel Podrasic cast. Ben, had you seen Jewel before?

[Ben]

It sounds like you're saying Jewel.

[David]

Yeah. Have you seen her before? Where's she at?

[Griffin]

Her hands are small. Sometimes she's in a boat, but they're her own.

[Ben]

Famously lived in her car.

[David]

Right. All right. That's the joke.

[Griffin]

If that were true, I would have heard about it.

[Ben]

No, I've never seen this before. I caught a little bit of it on tv. I have this distinct memory of and. And just being like, what the.

[Griffin]

Is this? What?

[Ben]

Yeah, like this is so slow moving and very everyday interaction kind of. It just was out of context. It was really weird to just catch it on cable tv.

[Griffin]

But was it not until you watched it in earnest for this podcast that you realized, oh, that's that thing I saw years ago. Yes. So at the time you were watching it, you did not know it was Steven Spielberg's first film, Duel.

[David]

No, we are certainly covering Duel, which, yes, was made for television, but then did get years later. Well, it got a theatrical release overseas back then.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

And years later did get a small release in America, too, to kind of.

[Griffin]

Capitalize upon the Spielberg mania.

[David]

Who?

[Griffin]

Steven Spielberg.

[David]

Steven Spielberg.

[Griffin]

Steven Spielberg.

[David]

So we are certainly. We always planned, if we ever return to Steven's career earlier on, to lead off with Jewel. Very fun movie about a guy driving a car who a guy driving a truck is mean to.

[Griffin]

Look, we've covered this ground a little bit before in the history of the podcast, where most TV movies of any quality would get theatrical releases overseas because.

[David]

They didn't have televisions over there. Said fireplaces.

[Griffin]

Crazy. Peacock didn't exist until 2020.

[David]

Europe didn't get TV till 98.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

For them, they just had the radio.

[Griffin]

Those are just facts.

[David]

Yep. There would be the radio releases of movies.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Or TV shows. Or someone would be like, this is happening now. Just describing it.

[Griffin]

Something like Jericho Mile, the Michael Mann TV film that we covered on this show, and we cover as a bonus.

[David]

You made a really good TV movie like that.

[Griffin]

They put it in theaters.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

The Ewok movies got theatrical releases. The Battlestar Galactica pilot, like I said, really good.

[David]

The best movies.

[Griffin]

Movies. But, you know, we have a lot of international listeners, and sometimes they'll be like, why aren't you covering this as a legitimate film? It got a legitimate release here. It was presented to us as a movie.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And I think for us, a lot of it is, how was the thing intended?

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Right. In its construction, its conception. What did they think this was? And Duel is this kind of odd example where. And we'll back up and we'll get into this more in depth. But he makes this TV movie that's basically his second TV film, or I guess third in a way. We'll get into this, but Airs on TV is kind of a smash success. Almost immediately, there's a desire to release it in Europe. It is 75 minutes long. They're like, this is a little too short. So he shoots new footage.

[David]

Yeah. Basically 15 extra minutes.

[Griffin]

So the cuts are not wildly different, but they are different.

[David]

They are different.

[Griffin]

And there's a whole second round of shooting to kind of amp it up to theatrical level. Him coming back to it even a little bit stronger as a filmmaker. Sure. Then that goes to Europe and then eventually gets a theatrical release. And since then, there's been ongoing debate of, do you count this as his first movie or not? And I'm with you, David. I think this counts as his first movie.

[David]

I do, too. But I do prefer the TV cut. Is that controversial? I kind of just don't need the extra stuff. Just leave me in the, you know, leave me, you know. Tight. Tight. I like it tight.

[Griffin]

We can get into this.

[David]

I don't hate the extra stuff.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

I just don't think you really need it.

[Griffin]

Do you get the. Did you get the 4K steelbook?

[David]

No, I didn't get the 4K steelbook.

[Griffin]

I'm struggling. Kind of a rookie. You're struggling right now?

[David]

Yeah, I'm just watching movies on my phone while I burp a child. I'm doing my best over here.

[Griffin]

You know what helped put those twins to sleep?

[David]

What?

[Griffin]

A clean 4K transfer of Steven Spielberg's Duel.

[David]

You're saying the movie's boring?

[Griffin]

No, I'm saying your. Your twin sons would sense the relaxation that comes from being in the hands of a master.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Even at his earliest stages, they'd go, oh, this guy knows what he's doing. He Knows how to make a picture.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And immediately. Hong Shu. Hong Shu.

[Ben]

And what more soothing sound than the sound of a truck horn?

[Griffin]

I was watching it here in the office before we recorded. Right. I got. I got my 4k in here. It looks incredible. It's a beautiful transfer. Ben, would you mind moving this chair a little bit so my remote signal can hit. Just move that chair a tiny bit. This is the thing I want to show you. Because this caused a lot of controversy in the nerdiest corners of physical media. Online debate. Okay. This beautiful, beautiful 4K transfer.

[David]

A bucol.

[Griffin]

It's a bucol 4K transfer. A lot of people, like you prefer the TV cut. And they were like, okay, perfect 4K restoration. Really treated with respect of the theatrical cut of the movie. And then they listed special features.

[David]

There's the TV version that's included.

[Griffin]

Great.

[David]

It says it's in HD.

[Griffin]

You have your options. Yeah. So it's not in 4K, it's in HD. Then you play this. It is the worst AI quote unquote restoration.

[David]

Oh, no.

[Griffin]

It is basically unwatchable.

[David]

Whoa. Yeah.

[Griffin]

I'm gonna fast forward to a point of movement so you can see this and we can get your reaction live.

[David]

But there's, like, cars moving. I got some credits going here. It's a nice car. I know. It's like kind of a, you know, nice car. Evil broken down old Plymouth or whatever it is.

[Griffin]

You can see a little of how waxy it looks.

[David]

Does look a little shiny.

[Griffin]

And it feels like they took a standard DEF file.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

And wanted it to say it was hd. So they, like, tried to upscale it, but the way they did that was just.

[David]

Ew.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

Oh, it looks very odd.

[Griffin]

And it gets worse as it goes along. It looks like it has some weird Photoshop filter on it.

[David]

It does. Like, his face looks too smooth.

[Griffin]

Yes. But then the outline of, like, the silhouette of his profile is really strong. There's like a black line as if it looks like it's, like, posterized.

[David]

Yeah. Bit odd.

[Griffin]

Yeah. It gets worse as it goes along, unsurprisingly, as it, like, extends into proper action. Like. Right.

[David]

Wait, what's going on here?

[Griffin]

It's. It's one.

[David]

I'm almost like, is our projector broken? Like, that's what it's making me think.

[Griffin]

Look at the sign in the back.

[Ben]

It looks like. Like we like 3D glass.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

Without the glasses. It looks like there's Vaseline on.

[Griffin]

Right. There's different problems every 30 seconds. But it sucks because basically it's like this should exist in a valid form as valid.

[David]

I mean, even if you just want to show it to me in, you know, just standard, like tv, like. Fine, this is my point.

[Griffin]

It's genuinely better to just watch a shitty YouTube version of it than watch this.

[David]

Right, Right.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Turn it off.

[Griffin]

Yeah, let's keep it plain so we can give ourselves headaches. David, let's crack open the dossier. Wait a second. It's only one line and it says go watch the fablements. Jj, you are fire.

[David]

No, I'm going to open the dossier so we can talk about an under discussed figure in American cinema. Steven Spielberg. Steven Allen. Spielberg. Griffin.

[Griffin]

Did you know that you learn something new every day?

[David]

Like Michael Cera in Barbie. He was Alan.

[Griffin]

He was Alan.

[David]

Born December 18, 1946. Did you know that?

[Griffin]

No.

[Ben]

What's his sign?

[David]

Of course, that would make him a Sagittarius.

[Ben]

Oh, totally. That makes so much sense.

[Griffin]

So 1941 was a prequel.

[David]

Yeah, he was.

[Griffin]

To his birth.

[David]

To his birth, sure. Born in Cincinnati, Ohio. Actually, apparently there's been some controversy over his birthday because it's often recorded as happening in 1947.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

Which is a something that Spielberg, I think, sort of maybe mis like helped massage the truth about. To get out of a contract.

[Griffin]

Doesn't matter.

[David]

This is not important.

[Griffin]

Jj, was he maybe pretending to be older?

[David]

He was pretending to be, yes, but I think he used it. He basically pretended to be a year younger to get a contract. Dismissed.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

Or like he pretended to be. Yeah, I don't know. It doesn't matter. Steven Spielberg, born to parents Arnold and Leah. No, I'm sorry, no. To parents Paul Dano and Michelle Williams.

[Griffin]

Yeah, Therehere we go. JJ, big whiff on your part.

[David]

And Arnold, of course. Sorry. Paul Dano went to high school with Leah's brother Bernie. So that's how they knew each other. They started dating after high school and Leah, of course was a musician. She went to the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. Arnold was in the Air Force. They got married after the war. And Michelle Williams. Sorry, Leah was planning to be a concert pianist.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

But she stopped doing it and had three, four kids, Steven and three girls, Ann, sue and Nancy. And of course, as we know, they moved to New Jersey and there was like a tornado there and it was all very metaphorical. And eventually they ended up in Arizona. And you know, it was to get away from Seth Rogen. Cause he was so sexy and hot.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Just doing the fable in a non threatening way.

[David]

Right. In a kind of a friendly way. But still like there's a real tension there.

[Griffin]

No, I mean, look there. It's what. JJ even reached out to us and was like, do you guys mind if I spend more time than usual trying to prepare this first dossier? Because he was like, it's, it's actually harder for me to pin down the pre movie career Spielberg story than I thought it would be.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And I think part of that is because he was kind of tight lipped about his personal life until more recently.

[David]

When he finally got into it.

[Griffin]

Or no, I mean, there was a lot of him speaking in very general terms and then people inferring a lot from his films. Right. So there was like, well, clearly this guy never got over his parents divorce.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And then I feel like there was a lot of psychoanalyzing from him. And then when they did the HBO documentary, whatever that was.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Like six or seven years ago, I remember he started talking more openly about his relationship with his parents.

[David]

And his parents are in that documentary together.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

Being very sweet with each other, but. Right. Talking about, obviously, yes, Seth Rogen and that one time she had the monkey and all that stuff.

[Griffin]

And Seth Rogen's like, why am I getting dragged into this? I never met the woman impression fell apart really fast.

[David]

It really fell apart.

[Griffin]

I had it for like two seconds.

[David]

Maybe an early memory, of course.

[Griffin]

But then Fableman's, of course, like, is.

[David]

The film he made.

[Griffin]

Yes. Unpacks more of it. But also, we should acknowledge Fabelman's is a fictionalized movie. It is, it's, it's, it's, it's consolidated, it's dramatized.

[David]

But I think it's a lot close. For example, he remembers the first film he attended is the Greatest show on Earth.

[Griffin]

Sure.

[David]

Where he, you know, saw the circus on screen and he was freaked out. Right. The train wreck. Jimmy Stewart as the clown. It is disgusting, as he puts it. I was disappointed by everything after that. I didn't trust anybody. I never felt life was good enough. So I had to embellish it. It begins his obsession with Hollywood storytelling.

[Griffin]

This is the thing that I think, and certainly we've talked about a lot, but Fabelman's provided such an effective codex for me. And understanding him in a way I hadn't before is like, oh, the kind of core truths of this guy are. One, he is like hypersensitive and feels things really deeply to. The only way he knows how to process those things is through filmmaking. And three, he is kind of scared by how effective he is at manipulating other people's emotions. Through filmmaking. That his, like, prodigious gift is something he doesn't quite understand that he always feels a little guilty about.

[David]

Speaking of his parents, obviously, as well, the two sides of Spielberg. His father, the technician. Precise. Computer obsessed. You know, he was in that movie Ruby Sparks, of course. And then his mother. Right.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Sort of the Dawson's Creek of the family in a way. Right. Artistic.

[Griffin]

Used to date. That's a big failing of the Last Dance. Right.

[David]

That she's just not in it or.

[Griffin]

Should be in it. There are a lot of problems with that movie, but I. I put that chief among them.

[David]

They don't even try to address her absence. Right. Steven Spilberry's mother's absence from Venom 3.

[Griffin]

Yeah. They don't. They're not mentioned.

[David]

I'm sorry about Venom.

[Griffin]

Hey, David. I'm sorry about that.

[David]

Spielberg remembers at a young age his dad coming home with a transistor and showing it to his children and being like, this is the future. And Spielberg says that he took it and put it in his mouth and swallowed it. And he remembers this as this kind of like, confrontation. Like he was trying to be funny, but it was very tense. Spielberg says, it's as if I was saying, it's your future, but it doesn't have to be mine. Which is funny to think about because I do feel like Spielberg is seen as a cutting edge filmmaker when it comes to technology for pretty much his whole career.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

It's not like Spielberg is a guy who takes a while to catch up to. She's usually breaking through some big barrier if he's making a, you know, bigger scale movie.

[Griffin]

Yeah. He's also talked a lot as an adult, I think, especially since his father passed away. And he's felt more comfortable talking about his parents without fear of upsetting.

[David]

Right. Both his parents died at the age of like a billion. Like, they both have these, like, long lives, which is great.

[Griffin]

Hey, fantastic.

[David]

Like, his dad was 103 when he.

[Griffin]

Died and his mom was like, 100.

[David]

Yeah. And like, they were. Right. So.

[Griffin]

But he said that, you know, I think his father did not totally know how to relate to people.

[David]

He's 97.

[Griffin]

He was like a genius.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

Very smart, but did not relate to people, but was like, in a time where people didn't understand what he was so good at. And Spielberg's like, if he were born 10 years later, he would have been a wildly successful, publicly hailed genius.

[David]

Right. Just maybe slightly early for the computer age or whatever.

[Griffin]

He was like, too early without being a pioneer in Terms of discovering the basic building blocks of the thing where he was one of the first people to understand it and know how to do it well, but was like a little too late to be the groundbreakers and a little bit too early to be the people who knew how to evolve it. And he just kind of became a journeyman computer guy right in the field that then ultimately would end up like ruling the world. He was born at the exact wrong time to just be a kind of like drone, you know, a well paid, high level drone.

[David]

Meanwhile, his mother, apart from appearing on Dawson's Creek is just like very energetic, childlike. He describes her as this kind of like, you know, musical person in all these ways and like, you know, kind of never grew up in a way. And you know, it's all just watch the fable moons.

[Griffin]

I should also mention that on top of his dad being a computer genius.

[David]

Both parents also by the way just say like Steven intense kid. Like it's like as much as he has mythologies parents so much they're both like he was really a lot like he was a really intense kid and kind of tough to wrap your brain around.

[Griffin]

This is what I'm saying about like the whole slam on Spielberg for a long time that we I'm sure will comment on as, as we like read the reviews and such at the time these wildly successful films got released. Right. Is he's like Peter Pan syndrome, overgrown child, doesn't engage with adult world, is just making hollow entertainment. He's like a slick showman, but he's like dumbing down culture. And this guy is like avoiding adulthood and reality. And I think once again the movie the Fablements makes it very clear that part of this complex is that he was like brought into an adult world prematurely and burdened with like his parents problems in a way that I think kind of bifurcated him right in one way he's like too aware of the adult world from too young an age and then feels the need to escape and look back and all this other stuff. But it also feels like he was a kid who felt things way too intensely as a child, was very burdened by like, you know, a sort of like fear of reality. And it makes sense that like the ability to control the universe around him and make these stories that are these ecstatic expressions of emotions in sort of novel entertaining ways. Isn't avoidance as much as it's. As I was saying before processing Griffin. Oh wait, no, this is me. I'm just doing a solo ad read. Listen this time of year People are saying ho ho ho, Merry Christmas or ha ha ha, Happy Hanukkah or Happy Holidays. I guess it works for both. But what I want to encourage people to say is mo mo mo merry movies. Yeah, because this is Blank Check with Griffin David. We love movies and we are so excited that our friends at Regal are continuing to support the show. Because if you sign up for Regal Unlimited, which of course is the all you can watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits, that's one Glickid one no Sonic Furatu one double feature you've paid for your visit. You see any standard 2D movie anytime with no blackout dates or restrictions. And with Regal Unlimited, you won't just save money on tickets, you'll also save on snacks eating. So you can go. You're still saying the momo mo merry movies thing, but you have snacks in your mouth. The point Is, members get 10% off of all non alcoholic concession items. So if you're planning to see two movies this month, Regal Unlimited just makes sense. Here's what you do. You sign up now in the Regal app or at the link in the description and use code blank check. Now I know what you're saying. Oh God, I've heard a lot of Regal ads before. I get it. I know what he's offering. 10% off your three month subscription. Wrong. Holiday special. 20% off if you use code blank check. This is unprecedented. 20% off. Now I'm trying to answer your questions before you ask them. What if you already have a subscription? What if you're not a. What if you don't live in an area with a lot of Regals? Here's the thing to think about. You got anyone in your life who loves movies? You looking for a gift? Regal unlimited subscription, 20% off. Code blank check. And I want to say this as well. We've been doing a lot of work behind the scenes to evolve our strategy with advertising on this show to both hopefully make a more enjoyable listening experience for all of you and to keep everyone happy and paid at Blank Shack Productions. And a big part of that is us being really excited about partnerships like our friends at Regal that feel very on topic of what we do on this podcast and feels like a great opportunity to encourage people to take up an offer to go see movies. A thing I imagine a lot of our listeners really want to do. So if you're looking for a way to say thanks and show support for the podcast, this would be a really helpful thing to do. Thank you very much and One Last time. Momo Mo Nern movies.

[David]

Yeah, he, you know, he was intense. There's a lot of stories about it. Anyway, in 1957 he watched the films. They moved to Arizona. Spielberg says his most formative time. He's lived there from the age of 9 to 16. Leah, his mom. Sorry, Michelle. Doesn't want to move there.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

Sees it a bit of a barren wasteland. He's really struggling at that point.

[Griffin]

Sure. His dad's best friend was dating a porn star next door and it turned out that he had a surprisingly large penis.

[David]

What movie is that?

[Griffin]

Girl Next Door? I thought if I said next door. The Paul Dano character.

[David]

Right. I forgot he's in that.

[Griffin]

His character's name is Klits.

[David]

I haven't seen that movie in 20 years.

[Griffin]

I regret to inform you it's a 10 out of 10 master.

[David]

Oh, is that right? Is that so?

[Griffin]

You know, you know who endorses that take?

[David]

I don't one.

[Griffin]

Steven Spielberg.

[David]

Oh, he loves the girl next to. Actually loves the girl he likes Luke Greenfield's. The. Whatever.

[Griffin]

He wrote Luke Greenfield a letter when he watched it.

[David]

When he moves to Arizona. What does Spielberg get his hands on?

[Griffin]

A camera. A camera, A movie camera.

[David]

Filming trains crashing together and his mom dancing around.

[Griffin]

Taking control of his own universe. Documenting, reconstructing, reverse engineering, all of it. It's, it's the tool for him to make sense of everything.

[David]

His family was Jewish, but what he calls storefront crochet. I think probably similar.

[Griffin]

Can we double check that?

[David]

I think probably similar to the family my mom grew up in where it's like, you know, they were a Jewish family. They went to, you know, they did all this stuff.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

But they were also this like very American post war family that was trying to assimilate.

[Griffin]

And you know, my dad's family was incredibly similar. But. But this is also.

[David]

You get your bar mitzvah, you go to synagogue, you keep kosher in the sort of like, you know, kind of like straightforward way, not in like the mega intense way.

[Griffin]

Well, you know, the post World War II thing of like Jews wanting to be American above all else, but they're never going to overcome being perceived as Jewish ab else by everyone else.

[David]

Comes up in the Fablemans a couple times. Good movie. Check it out.

[Griffin]

Yeah, we're going to put footnotes on this episode. In the episode notes that are just watch the Fableman.

[David]

Truly, when you watch, when you read so much of this stuff is kind of like lol. Watch the Fablemans. Yeah, he had a bully who treated him like when he was like 13 years old and he cast him at that age in a war movie he made called Escape to Nowhere because he would make all these little movies with his friends and like that won the kid over. So Spielberg is using the power of movies to, you know, be friends with people.

[Griffin]

In the Fableman's, the bullying is they call him Bagel Men, right? And they put a bagel in his locker. And when we did that episode we were discussing like what do you think the actual thing was? They were saying to Spielberg, right. And I think JJ dug up that it was Spielbug. They used to make fun of him for looking like a bug.

[David]

Damn. So then he brundle flied their ass. He went into a teleporter, he went.

[Griffin]

To his dad and he's like, you know, good at that computer stuff.

[David]

As he's a teenager, he has some family in the LA area, sneaks onto the Warner Brothers lot, sees the making of the movie PT109, which I think is the dramatization of.

[Griffin]

Correct. The Cliff Robertson, J.F.

[David]

John Kennedy's War Service.

[Griffin]

Pretty solid movie.

[David]

Sure, yeah. In 1963 he gets brought onto the Universal lot by Chuck Silvers, who will be important later. In 1964 he makes a feature length movie called Firelight. He premieres it at a theater in Phoenix. I think he makes 500 bucks or whatever. There's a whole story about it.

[Griffin]

But this is two and a half hours long. It has never been publicly not viewable.

[David]

Except for some little snippet that he's made public. But this is right. When his parents divorce, Michelle moves back east or. No, they move to California and that's when the divorce happens. Right? That's what it is.

[Griffin]

I was gonna say we had talked about wanting to do a Spielberg shorts episode on Patreon. It feels like Amblin is the only one of them that's properly watchable. Which is basically his last short film before he becomes a professional director. I always thought they were more out there because you'd sometimes see clips of them played in like documentaries and retrospectives and stuff. But he doesn't let the full versions out there. There's also the weird, very Fabelman's esque sort of origin story of he asked two film obsessed kids in his neighborhood once he was successful in the 80s and 90s who are making their own films. Hey, can you work on restoring my old Super 8 films? Which Spielberg retained.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And those two kids, I believe were Matt Reeves and J.J. abrams.

[David]

Right? That is true. They've like sifted through his, you know.

[Griffin]

So these things have been like restored and preserved. But Spielberg doesn't let people see them in full yet.

[David]

So he moves to California. I think that's where he was the most bullied. But it's also where he gets the most into moviemaking and stuff. He wanted to go to USC or ucla, which are the big film schools out there back then. Especially doesn't get in because he has bad grades. Instead he goes to California State College at Long beach, which does have some film courses but isn't really anything so robust enough. So he just starts sneaking onto the lot. He starts working as a production assistant on the John Cassavetes film.

[Griffin]

Faces a big kind of turning point for him.

[David]

Absolutely. He's watching how Cassavetes treats the cast. You know, he's obviously seeing one of the great American filmmakers work. That's very interesting. So then.

[Griffin]

But he's also seeing like one of the great American filmmakers figure out his style. And his style is trying to tear.

[David]

Down how movies are sort of workman like Hollywood thing.

[Griffin]

Seeing the actual guts of the process of everything. And there are varying stories about like did Cassavetes fire him? Did Spielberg quit like Cassavetes by all accounts kind of took a liking to him and said some impactful words to him. And the story gets like muddy in terms of what exactly happened. But it felt like Cassavetes clock that Spielberg had a lot going on in his head and seemed to have a lot of gumption and drive.

[David]

He tries to make a little bicycling drama called Slipstream meets Alan Daviao on that movie who will shoot a lot of great Spielberg films, but they never finished it. Then he makes Amblin, a 26 minute film that he shot on 35 millimeters. That is sort of his turning point where he presents that. We're actually going to cover it because you can see that one. We'll cover that on the patreon very soon.

[Griffin]

January 11th.

[David]

Yeah. Ran a few days.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

But he presents that and gets a deal at Universal.

[Griffin]

Essentially that short is him basically intentionally trying to make something that can be a proof of concept sell real. Like it's him trying to level up from his childhood short films.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

To like this is a calling card. Yeah.

[David]

Doesn't get an Oscar nomination for best short. Something of a snub, but it's well regarded.

[Griffin]

Goes to see coming after it eventually.

[David]

Yes, he does.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

He goes to Sidney Sheinberg who is the VP of television production at Universal. Basically the most powerful person he has any connection to through this Silvers guy.

[Griffin]

The Silvers guy is the guy that Greg Grunberg plays in Fableman's who was so.

[David]

I'm sorry, his name is Greg Grumberg.

[Griffin]

But am I wrong about that?

[David]

I think you're right.

[Griffin]

The guy who worked on Hogan's Heroes, who was like a distant relative of his. Right? Yeah.

[David]

And he goes to meet with Sid and he's like, Sid's like, well, what do you want to do? How would you like to go to work professionally? He's basically like, sign this contract, you'll do some television. If you do a few TV shows, maybe you can make a feature film.

[Griffin]

There were a lot of apocryphal stories.

[David]

For seven year contract with Universal.

[Griffin]

A long time of Spielberg literally like sneaking onto the lot and holding up an abandoned office.

[David]

He put his name on an abandoned office.

[Griffin]

The Catch me if you can't ask thing, which I think I repeated in Catch Me if youf can episode we recorded eight years ago.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

But it sounds like a lot of that was overstated. That Spielberg was himself trying to, I don't know, blow up the mythology.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Of his early beginnings and make it.

[David]

Sound like he was a sort of Leonardo DiCaprio Est. Rascallion.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Who was banging broads.

[Griffin]

And much like the real Frank Abagnale.

[David]

Kind of probably made some of that shit up.

[Griffin]

He was like sneaking his way into a prodigious start, but also then told a story that was even more extreme than the reality. Yes.

[David]

So what does he work on? He works on a little short called eyes for NBC's Night Gallery, which is a Rod Serling sort of follow up to Twilight Zone.

[Griffin]

It's what if spooky Art gallery and every piece of art inspired. We'll cover that on the Patreon. But the pilot of Night Gallery is like a 90 minute airing in a two hour block. Three 30 minute segments. And one of them is Spielberg first official studio directing job, which he made.

[David]

With Joan Crawford, legendary Hollywood figure. And he says, she treated me like I knew what I was doing and I didn't. So I loved her for that. So they had a nice time. But he thought Rod Serling's script was bad. As much as he loves Rod Serling, he was like, it was not his best work.

[Griffin]

I'd agree with that. But it's just he kind of looked.

[David]

At the script and went to Sheinberg and was like, Jesus, like, can I do something about young people? Not like an old lady. And Scheinberg was Like, take the job. Like, just do work, you know, as.

[Griffin]

Much as it's not one of Sterling's best scripts. And we'll talk about this on Patreon, it is kind of a perfect piece for Spielberg to just test out his visual language.

[David]

Famously, Joan Crawford called MCA Lou Wasserman, the head of Universal, and said, like, this nice young man directed me just now. I am Joan Crawford. And I want to say I thought he had a lot of talent.

[Griffin]

Right. It's just fascinating. Like, Crawford being in this is kind of a, like, last rung on the ladder before, like, death, sort of like, how the mighty have fallen kind of thing.

[David]

Yeah, sure.

[Griffin]

What would happen to so many of.

[David]

These late 60s, right?

[Griffin]

Like, I mean, so many of the classic movie stars would retire when they were like, 50 or 60 and spend the last 15 or 20 years of their life not working. And if you did work, by and large, you'd end up being, like, TV guest star kind of things like this. And it felt like, you know, they're making a big deal out of, like, we got this person. But it does feel like they're sort of a relic in a museum to a certain extent. But, like, she has enough legendary status that even though her career doesn't have a ton of weight, her calling these studio heads and similar people and saying, like, I just worked with this kid and he's got the goods does make everyone take notice.

[David]

And yet he kind of struggles to pick another project or get something else done after that. Supposedly he wanted to make a movie about Thomas Crapper, the inventor of the flush toilet, based on a book called Flush with the Story of Thomas Crapper. His agent says, I'm sorry, Ben, can.

[Griffin]

We pause the recording quickly just so I can personally option the rights to that book? We could just hold for five minutes.

[David]

Y'all know about Thomas Crapper?

[Griffin]

I didn't.

[David]

You didn't?

[Griffin]

Guess what? I'm ready to formally announce that I will be directing Crapper. The Thomas Crapper story.

[David]

Famous people think that Thomas Crapper is the reason is, like, the etymology of the word crap, but apparently that's, like, not true. And, like, the word crap has existed. It's like old English to mean, like, kind of, you know, whatever. Something like rubbishy. So was him for, like, millennia or.

[Griffin]

Whatever creating the flushable toilet, basically him trying to take back the word.

[David]

Yes. Maybe that was it.

[Griffin]

People, kids have been mocking me my whole life. Guess what I'm going to do? I'm going to be the one who gets rid of crap faster than you've ever seen that crap is gone.

[David]

Another thing he starts working on is the Sugar Land Express, a film that he will eventually make, but he's not. We're talking late 60s at this point. He goes to Sid Sheinberg and says, can I go? Right. No one wants me anyway.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Writes some movies.

[Griffin]

We should say he does another segment in that first season of Night Gallery.

[David]

I guess so he's not mentioned here.

[Griffin]

I'm just telling you for a fact he did.

[David]

Maybe that came later then, because I'm trying to understand what this kind of, you know, pause that he went on is because he's really complaining about. Yeah, that wasn't until 71.

[Griffin]

Oh, interesting.

[David]

So that's a. That's a little later. Right.

[Griffin]

Okay.

[David]

He goes off and he writes some stuff. He wrote, apparently a dog fight movie, like a World War II movie. Wrote a comedy about life in the Catskills. Love to see that.

[Griffin]

It was also called Crapper.

[David]

Yes. He wrote something called Ace Elight Funny and Roger of the Skies, which does exist. And he has a story credit on. Never seen it.

[Griffin]

Oh. Oh, interesting. I feel like JJ texted me about this if I had ever seen it before, because it's like one of the only.

[David]

It's like a adventure movie with Cliff Robertson again, about a pilot. I don't know.

[Griffin]

I feel like Spielberg has gone out of his way to distance himself from it to the extent that I had never heard about it until JJ texted me about it.

[David]

He disowns whatever the movie was. He's like, that's barely. I got a story by credit because that's how it goes. But they had changed it by the time they made it. He comes back to Universal and then he does another segment of Night Gallery. Some TV shows, Marcus. Well, bmd, the Psychiatrist, an episode of this show called the Name of the game called LA 2017 that you've been trying to talk about.

[Griffin]

This is the thing I love. It used to be on YouTube in full. It's now seemingly gone, taken down by Universal. But Name of the Game was a weird sort of. I think they call it a carousel show. That was this old format that used to exist to lure more substantial stars into doing television without the commitment of doing 22 episode seasons. They design a show where it's like it has three different leads and it cycles between a couple different casts. So each of these stars only has to do seven or eight episodes a season. Right. So it's already this show that's not an anthology, but is a little, like, piecemeal. Like that.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And then there is just this one episode that Spielberg directed that's ostensibly a complete standalone, basically outside of a framing device, has nothing to do with the rest of the series and is just a weird dystopian future movie. It is the first feature length thing he ever directed. It was 75 minutes long.

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

It's called LA 2017. It rules.

[David]

You've seen it.

[Griffin]

I've seen it. I saw when it. Cause it went up on YouTube a couple years ago and people were like, this is kind of secretly Spielberg's first movie and it's a little lost time. That show just is kind of completely forgotten. It's never been released on DVD or streaming or rentable digitally or any of that stuff. And there was this one YouTube video that now Universal has taken down.

[David]

Of course, he also directed the first regular season episode of Columbo. Not the pilot, as people sometimes, you know, the pilot had already been made. But it's the first episode once Columbo goes to a series and it's of course called Murder by the book.

[Griffin]

Similarly, 75 minutes. It's like, that's the feature link Fish.

[David]

But it's a Colombo.

[Griffin]

It's TV movies that will air within a 90 minute block. And Duel was intended to be the same kind of thing.

[David]

When he's hired to shoot his episode of Columbo, Oscar winning cinematographer Russell Medi, who had shot Spartacus and I think was a bit of a hard ass because he fought with Kubrick on that movie. Who's Kubrick? Famously easy to get along with.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Said he's a kid. Does he get a milk and cookie break? Is the diaper truck going to interfere with my generator?

[Griffin]

I mean, funny.

[David]

Pretty funny. It's pretty funny, but genuine. Generally he impresses people. When he works on these TV shows. He kind of just blows people away. Peter Falk said, like, we had some good fortune making Colombo. Like our first episode was directed by fucking Steven Spielberg. Like obviously not famous then, but now you're kind of like, dang, David. Yeah.

[Griffin]

You know for a fact that's not how he said it.

[David]

Let's face it, we had some good fortune at the beginning. Go ahead, just come in a little far. I can't do Falk.

[Griffin]

Good luck fucking Steven. I don't know why my Falk sounds like the oldest version of Bob Dylan.

[David]

The thing he remembers.

[Griffin]

One more thing.

[David]

The thing Falk remembers is that like they're shooting one scene where he approaches someone on the street. They shoot it and he's like, where's the camera. And Spielberg is like, he realizes, like across the street with a long lens and he's like, you know, that's not something you did on television.

[Griffin]

It's this fucking TV show.

[Ben]

Right?

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Time to make the donuts. Yeah.

[David]

Spielberg considers his best work to have been an episode of the Psychiatrists.

[Griffin]

Interesting. So maybe we need to watch that.

[David]

I don't fucking know.

[Griffin]

Anyway, saying we need to devote episode time to it. But to him watch it.

[David]

It's a job, though. Making these TV shows is a job. It's not an art form for him. He doesn't have the passion, obviously. He's, you know, the stories are more schematic. He has to work in a tight schedule and all that. He really wants to make movies. Onto jewel. Richard Matheson, famous writer. Would you call him a famous writer?

[Griffin]

Yeah. What else would he call, I don't know, legendary writer.

[David]

I mean, he is pretty legendary in that he wrote I am legend.

[Griffin]

This is true.

[David]

Heard of it?

[Griffin]

Yeah. No, but was this whole generation of guys who were like incredible short story writers would write longer length things as well. But like incredible short story writers, Twilight.

[David]

Zones went to Hollywood apparently the day that JFK was assassinated. He was golfing and he drives home and he gets harassed by a big truck, okay?

[Griffin]

And this experience, the second most tragic thing that happened that day, this experience.

[David]

Has him right down on the back of an envelope. Like, story idea, truck chases, man on high.

[Griffin]

But that's how all these guys worked, where they were just like, you just fucking sit at the typewriter every day and you write 8,000 pages, right?

[David]

And then you write half idea.

[Griffin]

You sell it to Playboy, which this original story ran in Playboy magazine.

[David]

He pitches it to, you know, TV people and they think it's a little too limited, not enough there. He gives up on it, writes it as a short story in Playboy magazine. Well, I only read Playboy for the naked pictures, so I never noticed the article.

[Griffin]

This is the problem. Apparently Playboy magazine has words in it.

[David]

As someone who I will confess has never really read an issue of Playboy. Like, I know the old joke was I read it for the articles, right? And Playboy had genuinely great journalism and all that. Was it like kind of just at the back of the magazine or was it kind of interspersed? Ben doesn't know when I was, like.

[Griffin]

When I was in high school, I.

[Ben]

Was a Penthouse guy.

[David]

I just was. I was born after one red Spanky magazine.

[Griffin]

I also think by the time we were growing up, Playboy was. The articles had less juice to them.

[David]

No, I know. I think Playboy even in the 90s would still have these glitzy writers and.

[Griffin]

Like Leonard Malt doing like serious interviews of people. And when I was in high school, Lola Kirk, past and future guest on this show was like, you're a horny boy. I'm giving you a vintage issue of Playboy for birth, your birthday as a present.

[David]

For birthday.

[Griffin]

For birthday. I had one vintage issue of Playboy that I hid in my closet that I remember having a multi page Lainey Kazan spread.

[David]

Hey.

[Griffin]

Where I was like, this is, this is kind of weird to look through when my Big Fat Greek wedding's only like two years out of theaters. But that was like a 60s issue of Playboy that I would leaf through and genuinely go like, oh, this did actually used to have good articles. Sure.

[David]

No, I'm sure it did. It felt more like Richard Matheson's Duel. Right?

[Griffin]

It felt like New Yorker with like nudie spreads and some hornier shit. Yes, yes.

[David]

So it goes into Playboy and people notice it. Steven's Bochko, Stephen Bochko, right. Famous TV writer.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Is like, this should be a movie. Brings it to the attention of a TV producer. Abc. Universal has a deal with ABC to make, you know, TV movies.

[Griffin]

Yeah, these slots existed of just like TV movie of the week. And they're making tens of TV movies every year. So they're looking for old things that could be remade for tv. Ripped from the headline stories, short stories, original scripts from budding writers. There's just like there are slots to fill. TV movies are going to get made.

[Ben]

When are they programmed?

[Griffin]

Primetime.

[David]

Like primetime. Yeah, Movie of the week.

[Griffin]

All these channels would have their own movie of the week slot and they'd be competitive slots. You know, it'd be like one network airs a movie every Monday night at 8 or whatever. They'd be among the highest rated things. But it also was kind of like a way to establish a farm team, you know, to like test out new directors and writers and things like that to test out new stars. Also like stars they had under contract on long running shows who were frustrated being pigeonholed into one role. It was like, oh, we'll let you do a TV movie. You stay under our umbrella and you get to flex some other side of yourself.

[David]

So it makes its way to Spielberg, his secretary at the time, Nona. Nona Tyson. Nona Tyson throws a Playboy in front of him. Spielberg says he starts laughing and she's like, don't look at the girls. Read this short story. It's right up your alley. We should note that also at one Point. Spielberg met with David lynch, and David lynch told him, the horizon needs to be this way or that way. And all that stuff happened as well. No, he.

[Griffin]

Two year old David Lynch.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

Yeah, I guess he was fucking 25, whatever.

[David]

And he's into it. He calls someone up and is like, I want to do this. I want to talk to you about it. He calls up the producer, George Eckstein. George Eckstein sees him, as he was known Spielberg at the time, as Sheinberg's Folly. Right. What was ABC thinking or Universal thinking hiring this, like, child to this long contract? And now he's not doing much. Right. He does actually needs a director. So he's like, all right, come in for a meeting. Spielberg shows him some of the Columbo episode. Eckstein's like, you'll do. Essentially, we need somebody initially, he's like, can we have no dialogue? Like, can it truly be silent?

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And I think, you know, at a certain point, ABC is like, there's not enough room for this kind of arty stuff. But, you know, like, no, we can't do that. The movie might be even cooler with no dialogue. Certainly no internal dialogue.

[Griffin]

Can I make my case?

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

A lot of what's added for the theatrical cut are a lot of the, like, dialogue interludes of him interacting with other people.

[David]

Right. Him calling his wife.

[Griffin]

Yes. Some of like the gas station stops and shit like that. Obviously not the bar scene. Right.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

I feel like. And I'm happy that Spielberg has not gone back and recut this movie, but I'm sort of like, it makes sense that they insisted on putting the certain amount of voiceover, internal monologue stuff in here because they were just like, you cannot have this be completely wordless.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

In the version that has a couple dialogue scenes added, I'm like, if you then took out the voiceover, that's probably the perfect version of this movie.

[David]

I just think there's nothing in the voiceover and stuff that really tells you anything you don't already know.

[Griffin]

No, I agree with that. And it's also just because you could get why on a writing level, they were like, there needs to be some dialogue to keep people hooked. What they couldn't have accounted for is you're dealing with perhaps the greatest visual storyteller of his generation, a guy who can figure out how to convey all of this just in images and editing. So, like, everything that's being said in the internal monologue, he as A. He's 24 at this point, 23. How old is he?

[David]

When he makes Duel, the film came out early. Yeah. It'd be like 22, right? Yeah.

[Griffin]

Right. You could just be like, if you're fucking Sheinberg or whoever, you're like, kid, there has to be some dialog in this.

[David]

Right?

[Griffin]

Right. And even just it's airing on TV with commercial breaks and whatever, people are going to turn off the tv, as you said. You're, like, flipping through the channels, you see, and you're like, what the fuck is this? Right. Yeah, I. Within that context, it makes sense. Once you've opened this thing up and let it breathe, and you're like, we're gonna play it in a theater and we can air it out. Every single thing that's happening visually underneath the voiceover parts completely conveys what the voiceover is saying.

[David]

Right?

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Ben]

I will say I agree with you. I think that's the perfect version.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Ben]

But I would. I would say what really puts it over the edge for me is if there was a moment where it freezed on the truck, and then it said truckus menus, and then it froze on the Pontiac and it said, like, Pontiac sis.

[Griffin]

Good is Ben 1,000,000,000, Comedy Points. Thank you. Here's. Here's another thing, Ben, in terms of just like, what the ecosystem was for this sort of like TV movie of the week culture. Yeah. He was given 10 days to shoot this. He went over. It was 13 days. And as a result of him taking the extra three days, he only had 10 days to deliver a cut to them.

[Ben]

Oh, man.

[Griffin]

Like the turnaround on these things. Cause there just was one airing every week was as if it was a TV show episode, basically. Even though these were running as separate productions and they had their own stop and start, and they weren't part of the factory line of an ongoing series. It was like, you delivered this to us in, like, less than a month from the moment we hire you.

[David]

Spielberg wants Gregory Peck an icon for him. Peck says no, not surprising. I think Spielberg knows that if he'd gotten Peck, maybe this could have left to the big screen. Certainly he would have gotten more than 10 days. They're not interested.

[Griffin]

It also makes sense with his Joan Crawford history that he's starting to strategize about, like, I can gain some heat from proving myself to these legendary stars in their autumn years.

[David]

And they'll. They'll call people for me and.

[Griffin]

Yeah, they'll see that I respect them and that I know what I'm doing, and then they'll endorse me and whatever. Yeah.

[David]

But I feel like Weaver Dennis Weaver.

[Griffin]

Who they cast, is perfect in that.

[David]

Yeah. Because you need someone who's a little nebbishy and kind of ground down. Like, if it's Gregory Peck being like, there's goddamn trucks in my way, I'm like, no one's gonna fuck with him. George C. Scott.

[Griffin]

You know, like, Weaver's characterization is fascinating because this is a thing that, like, to its credit, is not telling you too much about this guy.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And yet Weaver's performance is really specific, where it doesn't feel like he's just a stand in. And yet there are certain things about him that are a little hard to pin down.

[David]

For sure.

[Griffin]

This guy's like a weird combination of, like, a little arrogant and glib, but also kind of like Nebuchi put upon.

[David]

Yeah. Does this guy have an anger thing or is he kind of. Right. A little bit of a pushover.

[Griffin]

He's both at the same time in oscillation, which means that he's really compelling to watch because you kind of don't know how he's gonna react in any given moment.

[David]

Now, Dennis Weaver, it was on a little TV show called Gunsmoke, which is the, at the time, like, longest fucking running thing ever.

[Griffin]

Right, Right. And Simpsons is now, like, gone 20 years past.

[David]

But more recently, he had sort of had a bit of a revival on this show, McLeod, which I have never seen, but it's an NYPD cop show.

[Griffin]

Where it's like, was that Darren McGavin? No, I don't know.

[David]

It's Dennis Weaver. He's McLeod.

[Griffin]

But. Okay, why do I think Darren McGavin was on the show as well?

[David]

Darren McAvin.

[Griffin]

Weaver was McLeod.

[David]

Weaver was McLeod. Darren McGavin. I think the thing you're thinking of is. I don't know.

[Griffin]

I don't know.

[David]

My camera, maybe. I don't know.

[Griffin]

Who could say?

[David]

Honestly, McLeod is. It's like he's like an old kind of cowboy type cop from New Mexico. And now he's in New York.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

So he's probably always like, you know, did a cow do this? And they're like, no, it's. It's. It's New York City, baby. Beep, beep. I assume that's what the vibe was, actually.

[Griffin]

Sounds like prime for a fucking reboot kind of does. Why are people not like Yellowstone in New York?

[David]

Right. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Modern day McLeod would kill.

[David]

Spielberg likes Dennis Weaver, who's got a little juice because of McLeod, because he's in Touch of Evil as the sort of sniveling night watchman.

[Griffin]

Yeah. The Motel attendant.

[David]

Right. So he's kind of like, maybe we can get a little of that energy in there.

[Griffin]

The twitchy kind of nervous. Yeah.

[David]

Weaver says his agent called him and said, they're going to send you a script. Say yes before you even read it. And Weaver was like, what? But then he got the script and he was like, yep, I get it. But it was hard to shoot this movie for him because it's all him driving and very little dialogue.

[Griffin]

It also just bears repeating.

[David]

And it's a lot of him going like, the fuck should I get over?

[Griffin]

David's doing an incredible performance right now. It just bears repeating. I know everyone listening probably knows this, but the Rio Grande line between television and film was so fucking thick at this point. Right? Like, it was just in terms of, like, the class and esteem associated with the two. And especially for any actor, you really had to be strategic in these moves of, like, which one are you?

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

If people started in film and then went to tv, it would be hard for them to make their way back, you know? And if you're a guy who is, like, doing smaller parts in t in film but then became a leading man on tv, you know, it's like, is doing a TV movie doubling down all this shit? I don't know.

[Ben]

It's a pre peacock world.

[Griffin]

Thank you. That's an easier way of putting it.

[David]

They look at a lot of cars. Casting the cars is kind of the biggest thing they have to do.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

71 Plymouth Valiant and a 1951 Peterbilt for the truck. And they kind of customized the truck, I think, to make it look a little scarier. You know, they, it's all crudded up with, I was going to say, by.

[Ben]

Customizing, do you mean they just threw dirt on it?

[David]

They put bugs all over the windshield. They put some tanks on the doors, I think, to make it kind of have more of a face, you know? And so they wanted it to look like a monster. And this truck looks perfect. It looks incredible. I don't like that truck's vibe.

[Griffin]

I hate it.

[David]

It also says, like, flammable on it or whatever.

[Griffin]

And you're like, ah, yeah, I, I, this is conjecture on my part. I admit this. Dennis Weaver is the star of a great Twilight Zone episode.

[David]

Which one?

[Griffin]

It's called Shadowplay.

[David]

Oh, sure.

[Griffin]

It's a guy trying to avoid the electric chair and just knowing how influential Twilight Zone was for Spielberg. And Weaver's in kind of a similar position in that a guy who's trying to figure out his way out of a seeming inevitability of death. You know, I could see that also being another thing that factored into the soup for him. David?

[David]

Yes?

[Griffin]

I just heard something mind blowing.

[David]

What?

[Griffin]

My mind is blown.

[David]

What's going on?

[Griffin]

Netflix. Have you heard of them?

[David]

Yeah, of course.

[Griffin]

They have more than 18,000 titles globally. Oh, that's. Oh, it's impressive. Oh, my God. Wait, but. What? Only 6,000 of those are available in the U.S. ah, you're more delivering all the shows.

[David]

Griffin, this is the problem.

[Griffin]

The overseas show, they're all kind of hidden.

[David]

Unless. Unless you use ExpressVPN.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Netflix, for example, hides content from you based on your location. All the streamers do. ExpressVPN lets you change your online location so you can control where you want Netflix to think you're located.

[Griffin]

Look, I understand some frustrations sometimes for people who listen to this show. We go through careers in order. We have a very set schedule. There's a movie, you see, it's on the streaming service. You have you go, great, that episode's coming up in six weeks. I'll watch it then. And you come back six weeks later, it's been pulled down.

[David]

Where'd it go?

[Griffin]

Where'd it go?

[David]

Hungry.

[Griffin]

Can I find it? Well, sometimes that's the answer. Sometimes they're hiding the movie in Hungary.

[David]

Netflix has servers in over 100 countries, so you can gain access to thousands of new shows. Never run out of stuff to watch if you use a VPN like ExpressVPN. This works with Disney, BBC, iPlayer, and more. You fire up the app, okay? You click one button to change locations.

[Griffin]

You just pick. You pick where you want to be.

[David]

It works on all your devices, phones, laptops, tablets, smart TVs, and more. And you can stream in blazing fast HD speed with zero buffering.

[Griffin]

It's not throttling anything. Okay? It's rated number one by top tech reviewers like CNET and the Verge. ExpressVPN also keeps you private and secure by rerouting all your traffic through an encrypted tunnel. We tend to focus on the. Just like Coraline's tunnel. No, we tend to focus on the streaming benefits because that's what you know.

[David]

It's security.

[Griffin]

It's security as well. And sometimes, look, maybe you're traveling overseas, you want to watch your favorite show, but that streaming service isn't available in the country. And then you can pretend you're back home.

[David]

Have you watched anything, Griffin? Do you have any examples? One to two, maybe.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Look, I don't. I don't Want to. I don't want to spoil. But our next miniseries has a director.

[David]

Whose stuff is really hard to find.

[Griffin]

Several films are just weirdly gone. Not on any streaming service, not rentable legally through digital platforms.

[David]

Interesting.

[Griffin]

And then suddenly I'm going like, oh, well, well, Disney and Belarus is looking pretty nice about now.

[David]

That is fascinating. Yes. Okay, so it will be expressly useful for.

[Griffin]

Expressly, expressly useful. Listen, here's what I think. I think everyone should be smart, stop paying full price for streaming services and only getting access to a fraction of their content. What you should do is get your money's worth at expressvpn.com/check. Don't forget to use our link. That's expressvpn.com check to get an extra four months of ExpressVPN for free.

[David]

And then all you have to do is you open it, you select your country, you tap one button to connect, you refresh Netflix or whatever. And then that's how it works.

[Griffin]

That's how it works.

[David]

It's great. David. Yep.

[Griffin]

This episode is brought to you by mubi. We love it. It's a curated streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema from around the globe. From iconic directors to emerging auteurs. There is always something new to discover with mubi. Each and every film is hand selected so you can explore the best of cinema streaming anytime, anywhere. But here's what I really love about movies.

[David]

What, David?

[Griffin]

They're invested in the culture.

[David]

They don't just advertise on podcasts and.

[Griffin]

They don't just stream movies. They put things in theaters, they publish magazines and they put out checks, notes here, podcasts.

[David]

And I'm saying they are putting their money where their mouth is by covering well on their award winning movie podcast.

[Griffin]

The movie podcast is starting a new season, Season seven, Box Office Poison.

[David]

It's gonna tell the story of six films that were notorious financial disasters but have come to be celebrated as visionary. That's visionary. I'm just saying.

[Griffin]

Fancy. Yeah, no, it was very fancy. It's based on the.

[David]

Tim Ruby.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Why don't you go ahead and say.

[David]

Why we're mutuals on Twitter.

[Griffin]

Mun.

[David]

Tim Roby, the film critic for the Telegraph in the uk, he wrote a book called Box Office Poison. So we got host Rico Gagliano using.

[Griffin]

His research to rob his research. Yeah.

[David]

To tell some wild stories about these films and their rise and their fall and their rise. What are the movies?

[Griffin]

Well, it's a good list. It's some movies we've covered on this show and Some favorite of ours that we have not covered.

[David]

Sorcerer, we will cover one day.

[Griffin]

Baby Pig in the City.

[David]

We have covered.

[Griffin]

Sylvia Scarlet.

[David]

I'm not sure about that one.

[Griffin]

The Hudsucker Proxy. We'll probably cover one of my all time favorite movies.

[David]

I know.

[Griffin]

Synecdoche, New York, a mutual favorite. I think we'll get there. And Speed Racer.

[David]

We covered it.

[Griffin]

Guests include master cinematographer Roger Deakins, Oscar nominated actor James Cromwell.

[David]

That'll do.

[Griffin]

Legendary screenwriter Wallen Green.

[David]

Okay.

[Griffin]

SFX pioneer John Gaeta.

[David]

Love that guy.

[Griffin]

Critic and podcaster Karina Longworth.

[David]

Good friend of the show past the.

[Griffin]

Future guest, movie star Rebecca Hall.

[David]

Still my heart.

[Griffin]

Yeah. UK comic genius Jamie Dimitri.

[David]

He's all over the place.

[Griffin]

And Tim Robi himself.

[David]

Very good.

[Griffin]

Six episodes released weekly on Thursdays from November 14th until December 19th.

[David]

And don't forget to stream great movies.

[Griffin]

On MUBI like Andrew Arnold's Bird, now streaming on MUBI. Now they. They phrase it here as the long awaited return to fiction filmmaking. It's been eight years and the last film she made, scripted, feature length film she made, was your favorite film of that year.

[David]

2016. Blinky. David Sims winner, American Honey, Best picture for me.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Great movie. She also made Fish Tank, which I feel like a lot of people have seen. She made Red Road, she made Wuthering Heights. And her new movie is Bird. It's a tender and compelling and beautifully surprising coming of age fable about life in the fringes of contemporary society.

[Griffin]

Kind of her strong suit.

[David]

That's absolutely right. Yes. She finds very interesting ways to explore. Right. Communities you might not see on film as often.

[Griffin]

You know what's another thing I love about mubi? They in their copy for the first time have answered for me definitively how to pronounce the name of the star.

[David]

Go ahead.

[Griffin]

This film with its buzzy cast features Barry Keown.

[David]

That's right.

[Griffin]

Don't say the G I know from.

[David]

Saltburn or I mean friends. Rokowski's of insurance. Yes. Yeah. Anyway. But yes. And then you've got art house favorite, Frenge Bugowski.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Franz Rogowski from Passages.

[Griffin]

And Transit Ondine.

[David]

Great movies.

[Griffin]

One of my favorite movies of the last couple.

[David]

And then plus a revelatory central performance from a newcomer, Nakaya Adams.

[Griffin]

Another thing Andrew Arnold has quite attracted.

[David]

Latest in a series of notable debut performances from Arnold. You got a canon of formidable female characters vying for freedom from oppressive systems. You know, even Red Road. Of course. You had Kate Dickey. Oh, no, sorry. Well, yeah, Red Road was Kate Dickey.

[Griffin]

That was Discovery.

[David]

No, that was. But in Fish Tank, you had Katie Jarvis and in American Honey, you had Sasha Lane. And she's still, you know, she's still crushing it, seeing Sasha Lane all over the place.

[Griffin]

Look. New York Times called it a beautiful, beautifully shot, delicately moving coming of age story. Little White Lies said it's a magical, energetic marvel from one of the UK's finest filmmakers. And David wouldn't know anything about that.

[David]

She's the best. And the movie is really, really worth seeing. And it's really great to have a new Andrea Arnold movie out there.

[Griffin]

Bird is streaming now exclusively on mubi. Additionally, you want to stream some great films at home, you can try MUBI free for 30 [e-mail] blank check. That's mbi.com blank check for a month of great cinema for free.

[David]

Bird.

[Griffin]

Bird.

[David]

So they make Duel. Spielberg insists on shooting it outside. They wanted to do soundstage.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And it's a big fight and like he went over schedule, as you say, three days over schedule.

[Griffin]

Right. Which is maybe the equivalent of going three weeks over schedule on a TV and on a real film, a feature film.

[Ben]

How could you do this on a soundstage type movie?

[David]

It would look shitty.

[Ben]

It would be.

[David]

It would look like a janky TV movie.

[Griffin]

Yes, but there's like, look, I love Twilight Zone. And a lot of Twilight Zone episodes are very ambitious in terms of what they're aiming to depict because that is a show that didn't have like a home base kind of rotation of sets. It could reuse. There's like a great hitchhiker episode of Twilight Zone that all takes place on the road. And there's very little like real car footage. And most of it is just like a closeup of an actor in front of a rear projection screen behind a picture car, you know?

[David]

Sure.

[Griffin]

They're like. You could see how they were just like, look, don't overthink this. This isn't a real movie. Like, Spielberg fighting to make this 50% more of a movie than they want it to be results in him over delivering on the product, which then convinces them to be like, fuck, film some more and make this even more of a movie.

[David]

Right? Yeah, he's doing lots of master shots, less TV close ups. He says, you know, he's trying to, you know, be wider, make it feel more cinematic.

[Griffin]

There's like crazy camera placements in this.

[David]

There's that's. He's the king of blocking.

[Griffin]

Yeah, but. But beyond that, king of blocking, obviously. Right. It is like the weird kind of just like Bone D. Preternatural skill this guy had. They call him the king of movies. They call him the king of blocking. No, I was going to say beyond him just being great at blocking. There's shit where you're like, oh, the camera is, like, mounted to the grill.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

In this sort of, like, side profile shot of the truck with the car behind it and shit like that, where you're just, like, on a TV movie. Schedule, budget, resources, crew. You choosing to do a setup like that is like, you're gonna have to sacrifice in exchange for putting your foot down and be like, I want this shot. I want a crane shot. You know, like, in exchange for doing that, it. The payoff is you get fewer setups somewhere else or fewer takes of each setup or whatever it is. But the guy, just, like, he had.

[David]

The fucking vision, but he shows the film to abc and they're mad that the truck doesn't blow up because it says flammable right on the truck. And they think about shooting a new ending that's more explosive. But no, Spielberg had said, I want more of a slow death where the truck kind of suffers and basically kind of bleeds out.

[Griffin]

I mean, it is an incredible shot.

[David]

Exactly.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And then Duel comes out. Oh, it's also got a really cool score, obviously, pre John Williams for him, but Billy Goldenberg, sort of this, like, Bernard Herman, you know, knockoff kind of score.

[Griffin]

Yeah, but I mean, yeah. John Williams starts on Sugar Land and then is his guy for save for five movies.

[David]

Yeah. Save for just a couple times. Duel gets rave reviews, average ratings. Richard Matheson says he was flabbergasted by how good it was. And George Lucas has this story of he was at a party at Francis Ford Coppola's house. He'd met Steven Spielberg. Maybe, but they didn't know each other that well yet. And he's like, the movie's on that movie he made. And they're watching it, and then, like, at this party, everyone starts to, like, lock in on the movie.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Like, instead of just checking in with it, like, everyone just sits down and watches it because they were like, this is really good.

[Griffin]

Yeah. I mean, look, I'm gonna. I'm gonna throw out a take here.

[David]

Go ahead.

[Griffin]

This isn't a perfect film. Right?

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

In its best sequences, it is just, like, astonishing.

[David]

Agreed. I mean, which is basically all.

[Griffin]

And not just its loudest sequences.

[David]

No.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

But it's mostly when you're on the road.

[Griffin]

But some of the construction of some of the sequences, you're just like, how the fuck is this guy's first movie? Not only is it just the level of skill, but you're like most people. It takes two decades to cross the arc of developing the skill. Then they get ostentatious with their craft, and then they learn how to, like, pare it down and get spartan and unshowy with it and just communicate.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

A lot of people, it takes over 10 years to do that. And the first move, he already has this confidence of, like, an old master. My big take is, I think you watch this, and in the construction of the big showcase moments, the big set pieces, the big sequences, whatever, I would contend, like, he arrived fully formed as an action filmmaker. He has better action sequences later in his career, but I'd argue those are largely a product of he knows how to build a better movie around those sequences. He has better resources and collaborators. He has better tools to play with and more time and whatever. I don't actually think his basic craft and understanding of how to put images together to create tension and excitement.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Evolves past this. Like, I think.

[David]

Right. You're basically like, he was fully formed. He's as good then as he was now.

[Griffin]

It was basically everything else rose to his level.

[David]

And I think he says, like, he watches Duel all the time and is kind of like, yeah, fucking crushed it.

[Griffin]

He now, like, studies Duel, trying to be like, how did.

[David]

What did I do here? Right, exactly.

[Griffin]

Because I think it was also in such a state of panic where he has to put this together so quickly with such limited resources. But also, he knows, like, this is his big chance to show himself.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

That this movie almost comes out of, like, just, like a flow state for him.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

As much as it was meticulously storyboarded and everything, he was just like, I just knew exactly how I had to make it. And he just kind of, like, put his foot down and got it done. And he proved his fucking point. Like, it totally worked in the way he needed it to.

[David]

Yeah, it's a great movie. I saw Jewel on TV, I think, on the BBC, the B, B, C. When I was 14 or 15 years old and I had my Empire magazine Spielberg edition. Empire magazine put out a special Steven Spielberg edition once that had all of his movies, like, with two pages devoted to them, you know, whatever. And so that's probably when I first learned about do. Oh, did you know, like, before ET or whatever, you know, he made this TV movie, and I remember watching it, like, seeing it in the listings and being, I want to watch it. I'm a young Cinephile.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And then watching and being like, that rocked. And feeling really proud of myself for, like, having done that.

[Griffin]

My parents did not like Steven Spielberg.

[David]

They were Newman's up again.

[Griffin]

I know. In the 90s, I think they were. That was a very popular time for people to kind of turn against Spielberg.

[David]

Yeah. 100%. Of course. No, once he wins the Oscar for Schindler especially, I think people are like. It's like when the Red Sox won the World Series, where people are like, all right, can I stop hearing about you? Enough.

[Griffin]

Right. And he used to be good, but now he's so maudlin and so manipulative. There was sort of a feeling of like, look, we can't deny Schindler, but everything else he's made in the last 10 years is a failure to recapture how good the first 10 years were.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And they were sort of like, you know, by mid-90s, they were like, Spielberg's washed. But I remember within that, despite being a child who was shown ET And Close Encounters very young by my mother, as like, these are important. And having, like, a massive effect on me, both. I remember saying to me, you know, which one is good? His first movie.

[David]

Movie.

[Griffin]

When she was in her sort of, like, Spielberg socks phase, and because she grew up in Europe, humblebrag, she. I think she must have seen Duel in theaters, presented as, like, a. A movie properly.

[Ben]

Well, we've already mentioned TV didn't exist.

[Griffin]

TV didn't exist.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

So, yeah, I remember her telling me about it fairly young and just describing the premise in the way that kind of excited me is like, wait. And that's the whole movie? She was like, yeah, it's just a nervous guy and this truck starts following him. And I'm like, why? You don't know who's driving the truck. You don't know. It's just this guy going crazy and this truck coming after him, and there's no explanation for it. And it's, like, thrilling. So I think, yeah, I probably rented on VHS when I was 10 or 12 or something.

[David]

Cool.

[Griffin]

Yeah. It rolls.

[David]

Ben, did you like it?

[Ben]

It's so impressive.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Ben]

How much it's a movie.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Ben]

And how much you're on the edge of your seat.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

But I think the first point especially that it's like, it doesn't feel like a TV movie. Really.

[Griffin]

No.

[David]

Partly because the limited scale makes sense. So you're not seeing it push against a budget. It can't. You know what I mean? Like, you're like, it makes sense for it to be Fairly strict.

[Griffin]

Well, there's a focus to the story, but then he's pushing to expand the scale cinematically.

[David]

And he does.

[Griffin]

And he does.

[David]

All of my problems with it are just when it's him, you know, kind of futzing around in various locations. Not that I think those parts are bad. It's just the only time you kind of feel the movie trying to fill out time a little bit.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Yes.

[David]

You know?

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Like the confrontation in the diner. It's a diner, right?

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

With the guy he thinks is the trucker. It's just one of those scenes where you're like 10 seconds in, you're like, well, this isn't going to be the guy.

[Griffin]

Sure.

[David]

We're halfway into the movie. He's not going to, like, go face to face with the truck driver.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And it just kind of goes on for, like, a few minutes of him being like, hey, buddy, can you cut it out? And the guy's like, what are you talking about? Hey, but should I call the cops?

[Griffin]

The chunk of that sequence with him walking in and recognizing one of these guys must be the guy. And that basically five stellar minutes of just this guy looking at people, sizing them up, visually weighing the pros and cons of it could be this guy. It couldn't be this guy.

[Ben]

Looking at their boots.

[Griffin]

Looking at their boots.

[Ben]

I think that's a really tall, interesting way of like. Yeah. How can I, like, read into a person through, like.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

The. The way they have selected their boots, what color it is, how dirty it is.

[Griffin]

And then he's running through the mental exercise of approaching each of these guys and confronting them and imagining how they'd react. Like, all of that stuff is fucking incredible. And you have to think, also in the theatrical cut, Ben, that's like the first sequence where he's talking at length.

[Ben]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

You know, like, because the opening, which I think is really good, the opening credit sequence in the theatrical cut of the POV of the car that is all added, that was not part of the original TV broadcast, and I think is just, like, really immersive, sort of dropping you into the world as much as that's the POV of his car. It's an interesting way to start in the perspective of a car on the road and get you into the headspace of a road movie and all of that. But then the phone conversation with the wife is added for the theatrical. Like, a lot of that early stuff is added. So the length of that scene and how long it goes on makes a little more sense. If you think you're watching a broadcast that's been going on for 30 minutes and this is the first time that the movie's kind of stopping long enough to settle you in.

[David]

The wife call. I don't need. I definitely don't need that. I, I Everything. The less the better. Right? Like, I don't want to know who's driving the truck.

[Griffin]

I just don't think that stuff. I think not bad. To its credit. It's not too overstated.

[David]

No, it's not.

[Griffin]

You can imagine the worst.

[David]

They had a fight or something.

[Griffin]

One the fight is about like him not standing up enough. It's like this guy's kind of just a drip.

[David]

It's a bit of a drip.

[Ben]

It's also this. Their stakes kinda in that he needs to be home in time because his parents are due at the house for dinner. So he's like expected to be home. And he already has had a fight with his wife.

[Griffin]

I think his reaction to all this stuff characterizes him well. Like, it's not like, I don't think it's valuable like backstory shit.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Or like table setting in that way. But I do think you get a lot from seeing him react to some other shit before the truck really enters the picture of just like, this guy's just kind of annoying. He's not a bad guy. I think it's key that it's like this guy didn't like. This isn't the manifestation of some curse on him.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

This isn't his comeuppance.

[David]

He didn't run over a little toy truck.

[Griffin]

Right. Like Matheson wrote a lot of Twilight Zone. And that's what differentiates this from a Twilight Zone or something like that. That there isn't the supernatural aspect to it. This isn't like a cosmic balancing. It's more just giving you a sense of why this guy is particularly ill equipped to deal with a situation like this.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

His personality defects are like a perfect stew to completely fall apart when face to face with this.

[David]

Right.

[Ben]

It's scary because of the random act of violence aspect to it.

[Griffin]

But also that it's like meaningless. That that's the scariest thing.

[David]

Beyond that as a driver. And you're a driver too. Ben Griffin's not a driver.

[Griffin]

Debatable.

[David]

Just the weird.

[Ben]

I'm just driving on the highway.

[Griffin]

Life. Yeah. And I drive the conversation.

[David]

That's right. And we're all kind of surfing the information super highway.

[Griffin]

This is true.

[David]

Sometimes I wish they'd put a speed limit on that thing.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

You Know what I'm saying?

[Griffin]

Right. That's not right. That's.

[David]

Maybe do some paving.

[Griffin]

I cite that as proof that I'm a surfer, not a driver.

[David]

But it is a highway.

[Griffin]

Yeah, but I'm surfing it.

[David]

You're right. It is weird that. Right? They're like, we're gonna call it the Web. Spider web.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And you surf it. Why do you surf it? Doesn't matter.

[Griffin]

If you said surf the Web to anyone under the age of 20, they'd be flummoxed. Is that.

[David]

I think it would be like me being like, oh, hello, my baby. It's just like. They'd be like, I guess I know what that is, but you sound like the old timey man on a penny bicycle.

[Griffin]

I wonder if they wouldn't even know what it was.

[David]

Maybe not.

[Griffin]

And I'm like, that was the entire way that the Internet was talking about for 25 years, the web.

[David]

Like, even that. If I was like, oh, did you find it on the Web?

[Ben]

People say, That's a great 3.0, though, a lot.

[Griffin]

Yeah, you're right.

[Ben]

That term's thrown around enough that I.

[David]

Think people know now if I'm saying it to the good madame. She would know.

[Griffin]

Madame Web.

[David]

Yeah, she would know.

[Griffin]

And we should, of course, acknowledge that her web connects us all.

[David]

And sometimes I do be surfing it, watching it, hopefully on Peacock.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

I don't know what it's holding.

[Griffin]

An unopened Pepsi can with my red.

[David]

My red goggles. Is there Madame Web 2 this year?

[Griffin]

Madame Web 2.0?

[David]

Yeah. Can they just.

[Griffin]

I mean, first of all, the title's right there for the taking, I'd say, look, we're recording this episode in November. It will come out in January. Yeah. I would say the green load On Madame Web 2.0 largely depends on whether or not it gets the Best Picture nomination. We're all in November predicting it will.

[David]

We're all assuming right, it'll squeeze in.

[Griffin]

There, but by the time it comes out in January, who knows how the fates have changed, right?

[David]

Maybe like, more than 10 films actually were released in 2024. That would hurt it. If it turns out that there are more than 10 movies eligible, Sony's crossing.

[Griffin]

Their fingers that the year is going to close out.

[David]

One of those years, no one releases any movies.

[Griffin]

No, I think, look, if I were guaranteed enough, and maybe I'll. Maybe I'll sound foolish here. I'm making a bold prediction about the future. As far as I'm concerned, Sony has One of the 10 spots reserved. I think whether or not Madame Web makes it in is largely dependent on the response to Craven the hunter.

[David]

Right. If the trap is set.

[Griffin]

One of the five greatest trap artists in the history of humanity.

[David]

So as a driver. That was my point. Right. There is a sort of, you know, like there's the kind of like rules of the road. Right. You know, and then when someone starts being aggro or even just like crosses in front of you or you know, cuts you off in a weird way. Maybe they don't even mean to be aggro, but they're just doing whatever they're doing. It is kind of fundamentally creepier than almost because you can't talk to them. Right. You can beep your horn and you can go hey asshole. And like shake your fist out the window or whatever. But like you do start. If someone's being weird on the road, that immediate spiral of thoughts of like what's going on with this car or truck or whatever. And trucks are scary. Driving with a truck is scary. If there's some big ass truck on the highway, I want to get away from it. I don't want to be near those things.

[Griffin]

Can I contribute some non. Non drivers thoughts to this conversation?

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

Everything you just said are high up on the list. All of them high up. Reasons for why I am terrified at the. You're scared of driving.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

And I wonder how much seeing this movie at a young age also contributed to that. I don't think it was the formation of that.

[David]

There's lots of.

[Griffin]

But like this movie just depicts 10 things I think about a lot as like why would I ever do that?

[David]

Yeah. I want to get somewhere.

[Ben]

I grew up in the. I think it's. Yeah. The most densely populated state.

[David]

New Jersey is very densely populated.

[Griffin]

Garden State.

[Ben]

It's really, you know, major car culture, lots of traffic, lots of road rage. Growing up, my dad warned me.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Ben]

If someone is getting really crazy and. And out of sorts, do not around.

[David]

Yeah. Don't engage or just de escalate or get out of there or whatever.

[Ben]

And there's so many of those stories too of, you know, a guy pulls a gun or a knife on someone. You know, when they. They both pull off the road and engage each other.

[David]

For me it's like I go through the Holland Tunnel. I'm smoking my cigar and it's like the factories and then we're in Newark and there's like Pizza Land. Right. And then it sort of starts to get more and more suburban.

[Griffin]

This happens after you woke up this morning.

[David]

And then I write. I Go up my driveway, got yourself a gun. And it's kind of like this metaphor for, like, you know, how the times, they are a change even in, like, the modern crime world.

[Griffin]

Quick stop at the bus, a Bing. Right, right, right. The thing you're saying.

[David]

Ever been to Pizza Land?

[Ben]

I haven't.

[David]

It exists. I think it's still there.

[Ben]

I've been to the strip club.

[David]

You've been to the bottom. The Bing. Did you disrespect the Bing? I would never. Good. Okay, good.

[Ben]

I would never. David.

[David]

He disrespected the Bing.

[Griffin]

The thing you said, David, about having this sort of, like, emotional interaction, this visceral interaction with another vehicle, but the person being kind of anonymous. Right. It's like so much of the road rage thing of, like, if you pull up to someone to be equidistant to them and you want to fucking yell at them quickly or like, flash on the bird. Part of that, I think, is the idea of being able to humanize them and being like, I'm angry at you, a person. I need you to be a person. It is what is so evocative in this movie. And I feel like Spielberg has said the thing he locked into when he read the story after quickly leafing over some pictures of boobs was that it's like fear of the unknown. Yeah. And the thing, I think one of the smartest decisions this movie makes is like, there's a certain logic to the idea of maybe you don't show any part of the driver at all. Cause is what is the scariest thing? Having no glimpse of the person.

[David]

Right. It's just this machine.

[Griffin]

But he will give you these shots that the Dennis Weaver character wouldn't be able to see from inside, you know, the cab of the truck. Right. Of his foot, of his arm, you know, of his hand on the wheel. It's always sort of fragmented, but it's like clear shots from almost the driver's pov. And I feel like you need to do that because the movie needs to underline, like, this is not supernatural. This is not like a monster. This is just some guy. And that's what makes it even scarier, is his. His motivations are inscrutable. They are in beyond inscrutable. Unknowable. They are fundamentally unknowable. There is no rhyme or reason to this. Is doing this for sport? Is he insane? Is there some backstory? You don't know what. It doesn't fucking matter. I mean, just placed in this guy's reality, which is why the fuck is this happening. And I don't even really have time to consider that because I'm just trying to survive.

[David]

But it's easy to figure out or to start spiraling over like, well, is it that. That I kind of passed him and honked my horn at him being a jerk? Is it that I'm this, you know, whatever city slicker in my red Plymouth and he's like a salt of the earth rust. And he just has rust and flames. He's just moving some rust and flammable flames.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

I do have a picture of the driver if you want to see him. They did. They did provide one picture of him. If you're interested in the picture. I want to show you. The picture I show Griffin is. If you want to say Griffin, it's.

[Griffin]

Russell Crowe in the film Unhinged.

[David]

Right. Which is like the opposite of this movie where it's like, what if that happened to you? But rather than. It was this unknowable sort of question of like, what does this represent? Or who is doing this? It was like a large Russell Crowe going like, fuck you. I'm gonna kill you with my car the whole movie.

[Griffin]

Right. And he's essentially the hero.

[David]

He's like, you cut off the wrong guy, motherfucker.

[Griffin]

I do think that's one of our friend Richard Lawson's best jokes ever on the 10 years of this podcast. I believe it was in the Witches episode where we were doing the box office game when theaters had not really reopened of what was in the top 10 the week the witches went on HBO Max. And Unhinged was number one. Because Unhinged was basically.

[David]

Yeah. Solstice Studios released it on like 40,000 screens.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

There was nothing available.

[Griffin]

I think it beat Tenet by one week. To be the first.

[David]

Yes. It was the first widely released film. Yeah.

[Griffin]

And you said, like, unhinged, number one, $2 million and Lawson said. Which is a pretty good gross for a documentary.

[David]

No, he's not the hero. He's a villain.

[Griffin]

I've never seen.

[David]

I've seen it. He's the protagonist, but he's. He's a psychopath.

[Griffin]

Okay. It's a falling down type.

[David]

Yeah. It's like, what if you were you. You know, what if they. Somewhat aggressive.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

No, he's already crazy.

[Griffin]

Oh, okay.

[David]

Like with a guy behind the wheel of a car. And then it turns out the guy you did that to was Russell. Right. Roided up on rage, not on steroids.

[Griffin]

But who's that guy? Who's the guy he's chasing in the Movie.

[David]

I wish I could remember without looking it up, but unfortunately I can't.

[Griffin]

Whoever this generation Gand is, here's the thing. I want to.

[David]

Karen Pistorius, that actress.

[Griffin]

Oh, Flo West. Okay.

[David]

Yeah. I don't know.

[Griffin]

I want to. I want to state an intent here. 2025. I'm going to really up the number Gigante references I made.

[David]

Oh, get him up there.

[Griffin]

I think it's a perfect time to start reclaiming Kim Gandhi.

[David]

Do you want to bring up the movie Bad Johnson?

[Griffin]

Yeah, that's a movie in which I think Nick Thune plays his penis. Yes. It's a comedy in which Cam Gigandet's penis comes to life and is played by comedian Nick Thune. These are fun names to say. Cam Giganday and Nick Thune in the penis comedy Bad Johnson.

[David]

Bad Johnson, known as Schlong's Story in some markets.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

You're telling me this film was in multiple markets? I don't know.

[Griffin]

There was a deadline story recently announcing a Cam Gigante Kellen Lutz movie. And I texted David and said, this is like the Pacino De Niro heat team up of dog.

[David]

And what did I say? I can't remember.

[Griffin]

I think I said the dollar store version. You maybe said it was the penny store version. Anyway, 2025 is the year she gun day comes back.

[David]

He's back. Duel. He'd be good in a duel reading. Yeah, sure, let's do it.

[Ben]

I wanted to ask, have you ever had a scary road rage incident?

[David]

Like, not. No, no, I would say. No, I would. I've never had a thing where I'm like, oh, my God. This person is like, this is unsafe and this person is going to attack me.

[Griffin]

Have you.

[David]

I've had like aggressive drivers with me or yell at me or. Yeah, you know, I've had like that.

[Ben]

No, I have this one with a truck that has really. It still stands out to me as one of those things where I'm like, this was a close call for me.

[David]

Okay.

[Ben]

I wasn't the driver, but I was in the car. We were coming back from Hartford, Connecticut. We went to a Dave Matthews Band concert.

[David]

So you were just riding high on being cool guys?

[Ben]

We were probably. Yeah, definitely. One of the. It was one of the coolest moments for me in my life.

[Griffin]

Well, you're already on edge because if you're driving back from a Dave Matthews Band concept, there's always the risk that you're going to get hit with his truck. That's a real road risk. If you take an Underpass. You might get DMB dumped all over.

[Ben]

Is that become their legacy?

[Griffin]

It's like, no, he's respectable artist. But that is one of the funniest things that's ever happened.

[David]

Anyway, go on.

[Ben]

And we were on 95. We were kind of like heading basically towards the GWB, but at some point split off.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Going towards New Jersey.

[David]

Right.

[Ben]

And I don't know, maybe he pissed off this tractor trailer. The tractor trailer went into our lane and we almost swerved into that like, you know those like yellow plastic barrels that like.

[David]

Yes. The exit protect you from crashing. Filled with water.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Ben]

We almost crashed into that. Truly. It was like the truck really almost led us to crash. And he was doing it on purpose for sure. It was very scary.

[David]

This is a dual time kind of situation. Yeah.

[Ben]

And we slammed on the brakes and it was very close to us getting into a terrible car accident because of this tractor trailer. And as it drove away, it honked.

[David]

Geez.

[Ben]

And I've gone by that intersection many times coming back from New England and I think about how I really could have gotten hurt.

[David]

Watch it. Watch your, you know, backs out there. Blankies. The mad trucker reigns supreme.

[Griffin]

Here's a. Here's another thing. I pull it up on my iPad because it is a tough. A slightly tough movie to talk through because it is so much just like.

[Ben]

Oh, wait, I'm sorry.

[Griffin]

Thank you.

[David]

I love how Ben footed for 40 minutes on his console.

[Griffin]

Yeah. But it was worth it.

[David]

That power paid.

[Griffin]

Year 10. Blank check. Year of Miracles. Soundboard is back. Kim Ganday references out the butt. Early Spielberg Jelly trilogy on Patreon. It's 2025. 2025. Year of Miracles.

[David]

I love it.

[Griffin]

David.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

I've suffered a great loss recently.

[David]

Oh, no.

[Griffin]

A profound loss. Half a tooth.

[David]

Oh, that's true. They sawed half your tooth off.

[Griffin]

I had a coronectomy. They cut my tooth in half. And I'll tell you what an experience like that does to a person.

[David]

Go ahead.

[Griffin]

Makes you really value the teeth you do have.

[David]

You want good teeth.

[Griffin]

My full teeth. This was a trouble tooth. And so they took part of it out. But the teeth. I got the good ones in there. I want to take good care of them. And sometimes oral hygiene can be a real pain in the keister to stay on top of.

[David]

Yeah. So why don't you get yourself quip? 360. It's an oscillating toothbrush. Griffin that's literally going to revolve around you.

[Griffin]

That's what I like.

[David]

I'VE been using quip for a long time, but the 360 is the, you know, you know, the kind of like, round brush.

[Griffin]

Sure, yeah, yeah. This is the whole thing with quip. It's an electric toothbrush that doesn't overcomplicate the most basic daily ritual. I feel like quip just exists to make this as easy as brush.

[David]

Very simple designs, ultra quiet, super clean, you know, easy to maintain, and is scientifically, according to the American Dental association, scientifically proven to remove up to 11 times more plaque between teeth compared to a manual toothbrush and provide up to two times more whitening on day one. And if you don't like it, return it for free within 30 days.

[Griffin]

It's fine. It's easy to travel with. It is convenient, it's easy to clean. And if you do love it, you can brush easy knowing you get a free lifetime warranty for purchasing on get quip. That's quip.com and the opportunity to subscribe to refill heads by mail every three months so you never have to go to the store. This is a part I like. That's the kind of thing I forget.

[David]

You don't have to go to the store. It just happens. They just send.

[Griffin]

It shows up and you go, oh.

[David]

I get time to change you. I get a bunch of quick stuff sent to me every, you know, a few months. It's really, really helpful. Got 25,000 five star reviews. And, you know, people love quip and.

[Griffin]

They got a perks program. You know, I love perks programs.

[David]

You do love quip Perks.

[Griffin]

Quip Quip puts. Quip Perks is a little hard to say. I'm going to say that's just for me. Quip puts their money where their mouth is. When you subscribe to auto ship, you'll be enrolled in quip perks to earn credit back over time.

[David]

Just for listeners, a blank check. Get 20% off site wide and a free travel case and counters top. [e-mail] that's getquip.com check.

[Griffin]

Free your mouth today and save 20% sitewide plus a free travel case and countertop stand at getquipquip.com check getquip quip.com check quip quip. I love the use of talk radio at the beginning of this film.

[David]

Sure. He's driving.

[Griffin]

They do drop it a little bit. Y which I. I think is largely because Spielberg wants to be able to make the most out of silence, which he employs very well in this film. It's interesting the. The John Williams documentary. He credits John Williams with teaching him the power of pulling back and living in silence. That he will often say, John Williams. Like, I think this is a spot where we could use something. And Williams will be like, you might want no music under this. And Jaws was like an example of that, where he was expecting Waldwall's score. And Williams at certain points was like, you want nothing here. But he's already got such a good understanding of it in this one. You have such long stretches without him using the score. And the score in this is totally solid. I think, like, pretty strong. Yeah. But the talk radio at the beginning is interesting because it feels like a smart way to keep dialogue going while not feeling the need to, like, over explain this guy, which is to this movie's credit, that it's like not trying to pathologize him too much. I know what you're saying of like, the dialogue scenes added for the theatrical push it a little more. Where like, the less you know about this guy, the better. But I do think it's basically the right amount, save for the internal monologue shit.

[David]

I don't feel mad to learn a little bit. I just don't think you need it. But I also know that it's like at that point you're getting to be more like a 65 to 70 minute movie that's just car action. And there's only so many ways to ramp up the tension of one car, one truck, you know? And so, yeah, no, it's a good movie. It's a really well constructed movie. It has the juice.

[Griffin]

I'm just like sort of running through it here. So you have like, you know, the opening credits from the Car V. His drive. Yep. Him listening daytime radio. Then he pulls into the gas station. The truck pulls out next. He only sees the boots.

[David]

He has the initial thing with the truck where he passes it and it roars past him and all that. And then. Yes. Then they're at the gas station, sees the boots, calls his wife.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

They talk that out. The guy at the gas station who's just a great. Back in the day, man, you'd pull into a gas station, hey, fill her up with Ethyl.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Ethel. Ethel Merman.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

My first question, two, can I. The guy is just like, can I lift the hood? Because cars back in the day, I guess it's just like, I don't know, this thing could explode any second. Guy says, you need a new radiator hose. He's like, forget it. But that's Chekhov's Radiator hose. Right. That'll come up later.

[Griffin]

And you have, like, a lot at the diner.

[David]

He orders an aspirin.

[Griffin]

Oh, sure.

[David]

He's just like, can I have an aspirin? Yeah. It's just back in the day, you could just be like, my head hurts because it's the 70s and I'm drinking.

[Griffin]

Like, we used to be, you know.

[David]

Molten lead or whatever.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Might have been gratis.

[David]

Yeah, it probably was.

[Griffin]

Asking for aspirin was like a cup of water. No, Spielberg. The phone conversation starts on him, and then in, like, the foreground of the shot, a woman.

[David]

The laundromat. Yeah.

[Griffin]

Yeah. You're like, oh, this. This space is also a Laundromat. It does a good job in sort of that, like, Taxi Driver phone conversation way of just kind of, like, immediately sort of emasculating this guy or centralizing him. You're like, the movie isn't even that concerned with him. He's having a conversation to explain himself. And the movie is like, yeah, but more important shit's going on. This. This. He's in this woman's way. She's trying to get her laundry out. But I just. I. I agree with Ben that I like that the conversation sets up. Like, okay, there's like, a time crunch. His wife's already giving him the business about, like, are you gonna make it home in time? He's acting, like, so beleaguered by everything. Right. Like, my boss is asking me to drive out to meet, but also my wife's haranguing me about the idea of not coming home in time before I've even made the drive out.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And also, she's complaining about the fact that I didn't defend her enough at, like, a work party where it felt like she was being sexually harassed. And he can't really defend himself. Like, you're just like, this guy is just kind of nothing. I. It is the thing I love about 70s where you watch this guy and you're like, I get that this movie is trying to code him as lame. If this guy walked into a bar today, you'd be like, that's the coolest looking guy I've ever seen in my life now.

[David]

He looks cool. The glasses are cool.

[Griffin]

He looks like one of the sabotage.

[David]

Cops a little bit. The glasses especially.

[Griffin]

Yeah. But you're like, this is a guy who's trying too hard to be hip. And then right then he's back on the road. And then this is when shit really gets scaled up. Here's a thing I Find interesting about Spielberg and I get into this a little bit on our Jaws episode, which will come out in a couple weeks. This. This is like, an interesting time for film, right? This whole kind of, like, new Hollywood transition point. Sure. Of studios being like, maybe we don't know what the fuck we're doing anymore.

[David]

Right. Hey, yeah, the Coppola, you want to make the rain people, you know? Yeah. Exactly.

[Griffin]

The kind of shit that results in Sheinberg being like, I don't know, give Spielberg a five year contract. We don't fucking know anymore. The old models aren't working, right? And you look at this point in time and there's like, a lot of the kind of, like, old master guys who are really struggling to keep up with the times, figure out how to stay relevant, right? You have guys like Otto Preminger and like, Billy Wilder who are just, like, hitting a wall in the 60s and are just like, I have not figured how to keep up.

[David]

Right?

[Griffin]

Someone like Lumet, like, transitions beautifully, right. Comes out of, like, 50s TV, understands how to become more relevant than ever in the 70s. But then this whole, like, era of, you know, the movie brats coming up and even, like, you know, Altman and. And Cassavetes, who were older and had already lived a lifetime to a certain extent. Both of those guys are obsessed with, like, kind of ripping down tradition in a lot of ways. They're like, this is all creaky. It's too staged. You need to make this feel, like, relevant and present. Then you have someone like Bogdanovich who's like, we lost our way. We gotta get back to the 40s. Bogdanovich's whole thing is, like, we need to get more classical in a certain way. You know, like, and then Coppola is, like, still figuring out his shit at this point. Scorsese's figuring out his shit. They're both in this zone of, like, trying to make the movies they think they need to make to gain the cachet to make the things they want to make. Versus Spielberg, who wanted to be an entertainer first and foremost and is viewing any piece as, like, an opportunity to show his, like, skills, right?

[David]

George Lucas wants to do a Sebulba movie. He's working towards that.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Coppola wants to do Megalopolis. He's working towards that, Right? Platinum.

[Griffin]

Yes. But Spielberg is this guy who is able to pull from the most exciting new things that are happening while also having this encyclopedic knowledge of the entire history of cinema. This is a movie of a guy using incredibly classical Tools. He's not fighting against tradition. He's also not, like, stuck in some pastiche.

[David]

Yeah, but he's right. He's definitely not tearing down. Right.

[Griffin]

You know, but he's like, a fascinating bridge point at an era where most people were kind of picking aside. I do think there was this sense, like, he's. Something's changing and we're tear it all.

[David]

Down and sort of stay the course. Yeah, sure.

[Griffin]

Well, what I think was, like, impactful about him being on set for Faces for a couple days and being like, oh, there's maybe like, a different performance.

[David]

Performance style here, but not being like, this is how I want to make movies, independent of the system.

[Griffin]

Right. But are there pieces of this I can take and put in? You know, and, like, a lot of his love of John Williams comes from him recognizing John Williams work in early Altman movies. So, you know, he's paying attention to that stuff. You know, there's.

[David]

I just.

[Griffin]

I think there's some.

[David]

You just watched the documentary, you know, everything.

[Griffin]

But I also knew that, like, Williams was an Altman guy before he was a Spielberg guy. I mean, he made, like, several Mark Rydell movies, which I think is where Spielberg said he really clocked him and then said, like, the second I have a budget to make a real movie, I'm hiring John Williams. But when he made Jaws, he used the Images score as his temp track.

[David]

Is it a good score?

[Griffin]

The Images score is like a discordant. Like, I mean, Images is like, you know, Altman's like, Repulsion.

[David]

It's a good movie.

[Griffin]

It's a great movie.

[David]

But it's like they don't remember the score.

[Griffin]

Old woman going crazy mostly inside her own brain and inside her own house. And it's like clanging noise and like, constant sounds.

[David]

He did the Long Goodbye score.

[Griffin]

Yeah. And I want to say, did he do Countdown? Did he do maybe, like, one of those other early, early ones before Altman really had his voice?

[David]

Not Countdown, not Cold Day in the Park.

[Griffin]

I feel like there are three Williams Altman scores, but maybe I'm wrong about this.

[David]

I can only. I think there's only two.

[Griffin]

Okay, well, then I'm wrong about it.

[David]

Unless he did, like, California Split or something. But I don't think. No. Anyway, I think it's those two.

[Griffin]

Okay. I mean, Williams was very close with Altman, and William's first wife died filming California Split. Huh. Which is, like, a weird fact I didn't know until I watched the documentary.

[David]

Died how?

[Griffin]

Of like, a completely inexplicable brain hemorrhage. She was 41 years old. She plays like a barmaid in California Split. Yeah. It's a wild story. Anyway, my point is, Spielberg is just this guy who's in this very interesting position at the right place in time to know how to synthesize all these different philosophies of what filmmaking could be. And he made them cohesive. And even in this movie, it's like, as you said, you can imagine the Gregory Peck version of this. That's the more obvious, overstated version of what kind of performance exists in a movie that is mostly on a guy's face. A thriller of a guy being chased. Right. And you could see the more obvious old school philosophy is you need a Charlton Heston esque performance to overcome the size of the story.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

You need someone emoting out the ass.

[David]

Yeah. Right. An incredibly not bad, but over the top, like. Right. Sort of screen dominating like Gregory Peck.

[Griffin]

There's an effectiveness to that. Right. But like, he's getting a more naturalistic performance out of Weaver in the. The thing I love the most about this performance is when it starts, Weaver is kind of doing this gritted teeth, nervy, tension, stress thing, right?

[David]

Yes. It feels like it's gonna be a movie about, like, they broke this guy, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Griffin]

Which they do. But the way that is dramatized, I would argue, is the second half of the movie, his face largely goes slack. It's like at the halfway point, it's like, this guy is so overtaxed now by this circumstance that he's not even emoting anxiety or tension. Outwardly. It's that thing where you're so exhausted that you just kind of go blank.

[David]

Yes. Because also he's just like, I'm not gonna convince anyone that this is happening to me. It's not gonna stop.

[Griffin]

He's in pure survival.

[David]

Right. And I just have to. You know, eventually he's like, I just have to beat him.

[Griffin]

And he looks more panicked with kind.

[David]

Of the most ingenious trap of all.

[Griffin]

And haunted because of that. But most people would think, oh, hey, Dennis Winter started to. And by the end of the movie, you're at your absolute biggest. And instead he starts to numb down.

[David]

Yeah. Which is fine because the action is getting more intense. So you almost don't need him to be yelling.

[Griffin]

Reflective of reality. Yes.

[David]

That's an interesting point, Griffin.

[Griffin]

Thank you. Every once in a while, I mostly.

[David]

Think of this movie. It's just kind of like. Well, actually, Ben, a lot of that.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And I guess the first Time I saw it, which may have been the only time I've seen it. I don't think I'd watched Duel since I was a teenager. I was even more, like, enraptured by cars. Not in that I thought they were cool, but just there's like, I can't. You know, I. I can't imagine being in this scenario. I'm not driving yet.

[Griffin]

Oh, sure.

[David]

Like, there's something, like, fearsome about, like. Like, yeah, what do you do if some truck harasses you?

[Griffin]

Whereas I look at those shots where it's like, the camera is mounted behind the rear, wheels on the side, and I'm like, this is the most terrifying machine ever created. Why do we let people drive these?

[David]

Now? I'm just kind of like, yeah, I would just go to a diner and fucking chill out. I guess he tries to do that and it doesn't work. But he also picks a fight in the diner.

[Griffin]

But this is. Right, this is like the failing of this guy. I mean, there's. You understand why, from how he is basically characterized in the first 30 minutes that when he gets to the diner and he sees the truck pull up outside, or rather, the truck's already there, right?

[David]

Yes. So he pulls up, someone's here, walks.

[Griffin]

In and is like, one of these guys is the guy. He can't get fucking over it. It gets him so in his head to have to reason with the idea of this being a person, even if that person is still abstract, right? And then you just know he's never gonna get over. Like, so what do I do? I try to wait this guy out, but then maybe he's waiting for me. Or I get in my car and drive away and try to get a head start, but then he'll catch up to me. Like, at this point, the idea of the guy and how inexplicable he is has grown so much in his mind that it's like, he's never going to get over this. Right? Like, and this is the.

[David]

The quote, unquote. This is the supernatural element of it, too.

[Griffin]

He's right for two hours and be like, is the guy.

[David]

Eventually we all accept that he cannot, like, practically shake this guy. Even if I'm like, yeah, check into a motel for the night. The truck needs to go where it's gonna go. We're all kind of like, no, the truck would just still be there.

[Griffin]

The truck would still be there. And he's trying to do the math of like, okay, my only move left is to make a direct plea to this Guy, person to person. How do I talk to him in a way that stops him from following me? But you live in his anxiety of being like, do I try to tough guy him? Do I try to, like, make an impassioned plea like, what do I do? And he can't fucking figure it out.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

He can't ID which guy it is, and he can't figure out the right way to talk to anyone. And the way he does it ultimately only shows how rattled he already is, where it's like, there's no way this guy's shaking this off. He could get home safely tonight, and he'd still be terrified that the truck would drive through his bedroom window. Like, at this point, he's fucked.

[David]

He stops at a gas station that has a bunch of snakes, tries to call the cops there.

[Griffin]

Let's call her. What it is. A gas station with a snake lady.

[David]

Yes, a snake lady. She's got a spider, too, I think. Truck destroys the phone booth while he's trying to call the cops and spread snakes everywhere.

[Griffin]

Right. Best line of dialogue is the woman yelling, my snakes, my snakes, my snakes. Maybe she's kind of queen of the creepies. Is that fair to say?

[David]

Because she's got snakes and the spider.

[Griffin]

As you said, I think that makes her queen of the creepies, that she's.

[Ben]

Running that kind of roadside attraction.

[David]

Hey, you bored? Need gas? Want to see some snakes? I've got them. Any money? You want to pay for this? Honestly was fine.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

The most Wayne's World part of this movie. Movie, though.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Where it's like. No, it's not just that he runs through the phone booth while he's trying to call cops. It's like, also, there's some snakes now.

[Griffin]

They're snakes. Yeah.

[Ben]

Oh, one thing I wanted to mention, because we just skipped over it, but I think it should be called out because it's so funny, is when he gets to the diner, he, like, kind of crashes into a fence.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[Ben]

And causes enough of a commotion that the people in the diner notice. And at one point, the guy who works there asks him something like, what happened? And he's like, it was complicated. Or something to that effect. And the guy goes, it looked complicated. And he has that old timey movie patter. And it just, like, really plays for comedy. I love that moment. It's very funny.

[Griffin]

Well, we also brush over one of the best parts of the movie. I mean, he's, like, living in the shame of, like, accosting this guy at the gas station and being, like, held Apart, Right. Held back from him. Yeah. And then he sees that the truck is pulling off. He tries to run after it. And I'll like, what are you even doing?

[David]

Right? What will happen?

[Griffin]

Right? Then he goes back to his car and he comes across the stop school bus. Which is just an ingenious plot of like, they're asking him to help push the school bus.

[David]

And what are you going to do? Not, you know, help a stuck school bus.

[Griffin]

And as far as he knows, the truck's gotten a major head start. It's ahead of him, but he's so fucking panicked of like, should I stop moving? Can I help them? What's going on here? And then the truck comes back into view and it's sort of this feeling of like, is the truck going to kill the school bus?

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Is it going to go after the school bus? Is it that evil or is it just about him? And there's like great Spielberg editing of him getting increasingly anxious by the noise of the children. Just like completely meaningless, innocuous children, like, laughing and playing and yelling shit. That to him is just driving him insane.

[David]

That is added, right? That's part of the. The whole school bus sequence, apparently. The added stuff, according to what I'm.

[Griffin]

Opening credits, the phone call with the.

[David]

Wife is the call with the wife. The school bus and then some of the railroad crossing stuff.

[Griffin]

Okay. Yeah. I mean, the school bus, I think, is incredible. Incredible.

[David]

It is good. So maybe. Yeah, maybe I should swing back to pro theatrical cut.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[Ben]

God, the train incident is so.

[David]

Yeah, that's right after the school bus. Another thing that again, you're just sort of scared of as like a new driver where you're like, I can just like drive across the railroad. There's just allowed. And there's just right, like a little wooden fence stopping me.

[Ben]

Yeah. It is crazy.

[Griffin]

But my favorite thing is, like, he sees the truck pulling back, right? And he's like, I gotta go. I can't help the bus anymore.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And they're like, what? He's, I'm gonna die. He looks like a coward. He runs off. He's cowering in fear. And then the truck comes up behind the bus and helps the bus, right. Like he is. So that the bus big times him just to make him feel even worse about himself. And then sets on its way. And now it's like, now my sights are back set on you. And then it goes straight to the train sequence.

[David]

Yeah, the train sequence is right after.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Which is, you know, the train. The truck tries to push him in front Of a train, I guess is the best way to put it.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And then that's when he tries to slow down, and everyone's pissed off at him, and it's like, it doesn't matter. The truck just reappears over and over and over again. And then it's the snake lady. Yes, yes, yes. And then it's the old people who he tries to talk to. Barry Spielberg.

[Griffin]

Y.

[David]

Apparently, he used that couple again in Close Encounters.

[Griffin]

Okay. But it's just.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

It's a great way of showing, like, this guy can't interact with human beings anymore.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

Him asking for help seems suspicious now because he's been, like, wound just so thoroughly up by this.

[David]

If anyone approached me, like a rest stop, I was like, hey, I know this is gonna sound weird, but this one truck keeps appearing and harassing me.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

I would just be like, you sound crazy. And what am I supposed to do about that?

[Griffin]

Right. Except he's saying that with the energy of, you got no police right now.

[David]

If he called the cops and was like, hey, there's a brown truck.

[Griffin]

Right?

[David]

They'd be like, okay, anything else?

[Griffin]

I'll give you money. But then it's like they see the truck come, and the truck is more antagonistic towards the old couple in a way where they're also freaked out by it, but also like, we're. We got to look out for ourselves. Yeah.

[David]

We got here. We don't want any trouble. Right. And then he. Well, there's the part then his radiator hose breaks, as predicted.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

He has to coast down the hill and almost gets crushed there. And then you have the sort of final showdown.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

Where he laces traps, sets the ultimate trap.

[Ben]

And we should just say, too, because it's so ingenious the way this story unfolds, that that moment in the journey is the uphill moment where if his car didn't have issues in that moment, he would be able to get away because the tractor trailer is not going to be able to travel up the steep incline as quickly as the car. So that really would be his moment, normally to actually get away. But of course, it starts overheating, and he's now pushing it to the limit of it. I mean, that's a moment where you're like, oh, boy, this guy is ready to, like, just scrap this car, like, to save his life.

[Griffin]

There's an incredible Spielberg film language thing where you have this wide shot, what feels like a wide shot of just the car cruising on the road, and it's after a section where he's been free of the truck for a while. Obviously not free of the anxiety.

[David]

No, but you haven't seen the truck. Yeah.

[Griffin]

And then suddenly the car, like, skids in the middle of the row road, seemingly in response to nothing. And the camera pulls back really quickly. You realize you were zoomed in and the camera is actually placed under the carriage of the truck. And you're like, seeing him skid. And then the camera is revealing the thing that caused him to skid. And you're basically from the POV of like, the wheels of the truck. And then the next shot is like this fast classical camera crane in from the sky into Dennis Weaver in the window. As. It's just like, I need to figure this out right now. Like, it is the moment of, like, I must set the ultimate trap of him deciding he needs to take things into his own.

[David]

Yeah, let's take out the. Let's just assume the car's gone. Like, let's write off the fucking Plymouth.

[Griffin]

But it's just like a perfect two shots of like a sort of perspective shift where you're, like, disoriented by. Oh, fuck. What I'm seeing isn't what I thought I was seeing. The image is revealing to me what everyone's been reacting to or what he's been reacting to. Followed by the shot that is wordlessly showing his gears running in his head and him like, basically throttling into a whole new.

[David]

And then if he sets the ultimate trail.

[Griffin]

He sets the ultimate.

[David]

Essentially lets the. The trucker get the car and goes. He goes down a canyon. Because Weavers jumped out of the truck. Out of the car.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

As the truck's going down, he kind of makes this noise been.

[Griffin]

Yeah, exactly, exactly.

[David]

It's a little louder than that. And it's got this kind of roar to it. It's kind of cool.

[Griffin]

And we'll amp it up in post. Yeah.

[David]

And.

[Ben]

Well, you know, there is, of course, the train horn.

[Griffin]

God, the discipline. The fact that he's been holding back on this this entire time. That's what makes Ben Honley a true artist. Much like Spielberg. He knows when you can just pull back, let folks sit in the silence.

[David]

Oh, that one. Distant. Where's that train? It's on its way to Chattanooga.

[Griffin]

No, he. He sacrifices his car.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

And there's this beautiful slow motion where the truck doesn't explode, even though the whole movie been clocking this. Flammable.

[David]

It does say flammable. I think it's a solid note. Instead, it kind of just like bleeds out. You see blood.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

So this implication that the person died.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

But it also just feels like the truck is dying.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And then kind of a Jawsy ending.

[Griffin]

Yes.

[David]

I mean, so much of Jaws feels like an expansion of Duel.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

Just sort of like simplify the monster, simplify the intent.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

You know, it's just ordinary people in this crazy situation. And I think that's why when he's making Jaws, he's like, should I be making another monster movie? Essentially, which is what this is.

[Griffin]

It's what's interesting about how his career went where like, Sugarland is so good and ends up feeling kind of anomalous in his career.

[David]

It does. Like, what is like the Sugarland Express. I guess we'll talk about that later.

[Griffin]

I kind of would contend nothing. I think there are movies where he's trying to recapture certain aspects of it.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Like something like the Terminal is looking for some of the breeziness of it.

[David]

I wish it had found it.

[Griffin]

Right. But is him also doing it in this heightened, sort of like Capra Pastiche kind of way?

[David]

That movie was heightened?

[Griffin]

No, there's nothing quite like Sugarland. And Sugarland makes sense as this kind of dorky guy being like, shouldn't I make what all the other like 20something filmmakers are making right now? These kind of personal generational youth movies.

[David]

But also car movies. Right. Like Lucas with American Graffiti and De Palma did a car movie and you know, like. Right.

[Griffin]

Use cars. Like all these guys started out making these sort of like you through the prism of cars.

[David]

Yeah, exactly. Independence.

[Griffin]

It's kind of similar to Badlands in certain ways. Like, it has all these things that make sense as like, what a lot of his contemporaries first movies were.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

And then Jaws is like a gig, I guess.

[David]

Didn't make a car movie to like wise guys. Yeah. Jaws is a gig.

[Griffin]

Which makes sense based on the success of this. Like, this is incredible. Based on show reel to be like, I could direct Jaws. I could make the shark scary.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

But then that changes the course of his entire career.

[David]

Jaws. Sorry.

[Griffin]

Once he's made Jaws, how is he not going to make things at the absolute highest level after that? Like, he can't make like, I'm just gonna make another hangout movie.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

But Sugar Land is kind of what was in fashion at that point in time.

[David]

Yes. This is somewhat shaggy. Like, what's to be done with our youth and like, yeah, the open road.

[Griffin]

And it's just that his was not wildly successful.

[David]

Isn't gonna happen.

[Griffin]

So no one was begging him to make another movie like that and his career feared it.

[David]

Feared. But. No, but Juel just like him kind of just like sitting at the top of the hill.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And just kind of like taking a moment. It's kind of like in Jaws when.

[Griffin]

They'Re just sort of paddling, laughing and crying basically simultaneously.

[David]

Okay. All right. It's also.

[Griffin]

Look, we discussed this a lot eight years ago, but it's why there were so many complaints about the second half of Spielberg's career, quote, unquote, him not knowing how to end movies.

[David]

It's true.

[Griffin]

And I think it's because the first half he would end movies, he would get out so quickly, he would reach the peak of the story and then just end. Like he had a real skill set for just like fucking. I don't need to wrap this up. You know? And yet it feels complete. I mean. Yeah. Is the last shot of Duel.

[David]

Right.

[Griffin]

The credits basically roll over. This shot of Dennis Weaver sitting in the middle of the hill throwing rocks as the sun sets behind him. And you're like, I have no idea how he gets home. Beyond that, what is this guy's mental state for the next day, week, month.

[David]

Rest of his life back in a car again. Right.

[Griffin]

Like, I love movies that end with. And what the fuck does this guy do now? Where you've just watched one incident in a person's life, one period, one series of events, and the movie just ends and lets you sit with. And do they ever fucking get over this? And that's totally what this is. He just sits there throwing rocks in like a beautiful sunset shot. And then the movie fades to black. Good shit.

[David]

The film got a 20.9 Nielsen. Okay, so pretty good. But was the 18th highest rated television movie of the year, which means it.

[Griffin]

Only got like 80 million viewers.

[David]

That's what I'm saying. Even though one third of America's television viewers watched a duel when it aired that was basically seen as like average.

[Griffin]

It was in the bottom fourth or fifth of that slot.

[David]

I actually think I have the TV listings. You want to know the other stuff that was airing? I don't have much here.

[Griffin]

Okay, give me what you got.

[David]

So on abc.

[Griffin]

Uh huh. Oh, this is. We're not doing ratings game. We're doing like, what airing.

[David]

We can also do the ratings game for that year of television, but I'm.

[Griffin]

Just gonna tell you. Give me this right now.

[David]

This aired between an episode of the Mod Squad, okay. Which was a very hot show about the youth in and of itself, and an episode of Marcus. Welby Maryland.

[Griffin]

Of course. A very hot show about the youth.

[David]

Hot medical drama. And that's on abc. Cbs. It looks like the only thing I'm seeing here is Hawaii 5o. I'm not sure what else. And NBC had something called the Search for the Nile, which was a documentary about, I guess, the people looking for the origins of the River Nile. Boring. Okay, so number one, the TV in 1971.

[Griffin]

You're giving me the year? Yeah.

[David]

Good. Is that. Is that right? Is that what this is here? So it's 1971 TV ratings. Okay, let's find out.

[Griffin]

Let's find out.

[David]

Let's find out. And it would be. It would be 70 to 71, right? Because this aired. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Number one is. Wow. A medical drama.

[Griffin]

Trapper John.

[David]

No, Marcus. Well, be M.D.

[Griffin]

Oh, well, with. I guess this is too early for Trapper John. What the. Of course it's too early for Trapper.

[David]

Too early? MASH has barely come out.

[Griffin]

MASH has barely come out. The show hasn't started. Trapper John's gonna run off the. Am I thinking if we ever do early alman, we're gonna have to do all of Trapper John MD On Patreon. Right?

[David]

No.

[Griffin]

I know we're loath to cover tv, but that just feels essential.

[David]

No, Marcus Welby, I have never seen. But that is like your just classic boring ass.

[Griffin]

I was gonna say, where it's like.

[David]

It's about a family doctor who makes house calls.

[Griffin]

It's what I would use as shorthand to make fun of dumb TV from.

[David]

The 70s, where you're just like, this is all. We've gotten there. Like, yes.

[Griffin]

And the people love it.

[David]

Number two, however, is something I've fucking never heard of.

[Griffin]

Oh, wow.

[David]

It was a variety show, okay, SHIELD Hosted by a comedian, a black comedian. It was one of the first TV shows hosted by.

[Griffin]

Well, it's not Flip Wilson.

[David]

It is the Flip Wilson.

[Griffin]

You've never heard of the Flip Wilson?

[David]

No.

[Griffin]

Flip Wilson was huge. Flip Wilson, like, clearly massive, pioneering figure. I was thrown off there because I knew Flip Wilson was one of the first. But I thought you would have heard of him.

[David]

I mean, I. I know him.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

Like, I'm looking at Flip Wilson. I know this face, sure.

[Griffin]

Yeah. No, Flip Wilson show is a big deal. It was a very funny comedic actor. Yeah.

[David]

Number three at the box office is not the box office at TV ratings is a sitcom starring a sitcom legend. But it's her third sitcom.

[Griffin]

Is it here's Lucy.

[David]

It's here's Lucy.

[Griffin]

Yeah. A Mike Carlson favorite after I Love.

[David]

Lucy and the Lucy Show. It was Lucille Ball's 70s sitcom which ran for six. Six seasons.

[Griffin]

Yeah, that's the thing. It was like, oh, Lucy's depressing final old age flop. And you were like. It ran six seasons. It was one of the five most popular shows on television. It's basically a show of. I think it's. Is it her real children play her children on the show as her adult children?

[David]

Yes, they do. Lucy Arnaz And Desi Arnaz Jr. Yes.

[Griffin]

Yeah. And it's just her being like, ah, my kids won't leave me alone. She sounds like that.

[David]

Yeah, sure. Number four.

[Griffin]

Exaggerating that much.

[David]

No, no. I mean, number four is a long running TV crime show that had kind of a gimmick.

[Griffin]

It's not Matlock.

[David]

No.

[Griffin]

It's not Dragnet. Kind of a gimmick.

[David]

I mean, like the guy. There's something up with the guy.

[Griffin]

Ironside.

[David]

Ironside.

[Griffin]

Okay, There we go.

[David]

Raymond Burr.

[Ben]

What's up with him?

[David]

He's in a wheelchair. That was like, you know, it's like. It would always be like, okay, what's your show? And it's like it's about a copy up and he's in a wheelchair or. And he's from New Mexico or, you know, like there's like some little twist you needed.

[Griffin]

That's how little Something. Yeah.

[David]

Kojak. He has a lollipop.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Truly, who loves you? This guy's bald. Yeah. What makes this cop different? He's got nice shoes.

[David]

Kojak. I've never seen an episode of Kojak.

[Griffin]

Detective shoes.

[David]

Kojak does seem fun.

[Griffin]

Kojak seems like a tremendous amount of fun. Vin Diesel has been threatening to make a Kojak movie for like 15 years.

[David]

He's bald.

[Griffin]

Correct.

[David]

Number five at the box office.

[Griffin]

If that ever happens. I will watch all of Kojak, obviously, so that I can suddenly be a Kojak expert in time to explain what Vin got right. But every time Vin's like talking about what's coming up, he's like, I'm going to go back to Furia. 10 more fast and Furious, and then I'm finally making Kojak.

[David]

Glad he's making Furia. Number five is the show that Dennis Weaver did ten years on before. Like, then gun book still in the top five.

[Griffin]

Wow.

[David]

You've also got the ABC movie of the week, of which this was one. You've got Hawaii 5o, as I mentioned, you have something called Medical Center.

[Griffin]

Perfect. What if there was a Medical Center.

[David]

Hospital show starring James dy, who Was of course Ty and Tim Daly's father.

[Griffin]

This is another installment of the Daily Show.

[David]

Correct. You have Bonanza, another Gunsmoke ask long running western show. Gunsmoke, Rawhide and Bonanza. I feel like it's just like. Like when I was a kid, Rawhide would still be on TV sometimes because it has that great theme song.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

And then I would watch two minutes of it. I would be like, it feels illegal that this is on TV in the 90s. Like, this is too boring for words.

[Griffin]

Was Bonanza the one that Altman did? Altman did a handful of episodes of one of them. And there's the great line that like, you could tell which ones Altman directed because they didn't have a plot.

[David]

He did do Bonanzas.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

But Bonanza is just another one. There's just like 500 episodes.

[Griffin]

I've seen like one or two of Altman's bonanzas. And they are just like guys talking.

[David]

Sounds good.

[Griffin]

They're just like sort of a long campfire conversation.

[David]

Just have anything happen? It didn't matter. People just wanted to watch TV. It was still like kind of new.

[Griffin]

Right.

[David]

Number 10 is the FBI, which I mostly think of from once upon a time in Hollywood at this point. But that's one of those shows. It's like, the FBI are great. This show is presented in partnership with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Boy, right?

[Griffin]

Yeah. Correct. Yeah, but. But no, you know what? Knowing that ABC TV movie of the week was the highest rated one is actually good context to know for this.

[David]

It was hot.

[Griffin]

Spielberg was getting a slot on the best TV movie rotation. And yet his rated low for the season. But immediately caught the eye of the people who matter.

[David]

This was its second season, I think of Whatever.

[Griffin]

Yeah.

[David]

So coming up. Oh, no. Third season. Sorry. Coming up on this show are other Steven Spielberg films.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Several of the most successful, popular and acclaimed movies. Some of them are well known in human history.

[David]

ET Jurassic Park, Close Encounters, Raiders of the Lost Ark. These are all movies he made.

[Griffin]

He made them and we'll be forced.

[David]

To talk about them.

[Griffin]

Forced. As David stifles a burp.

[David]

Yep. For your viewing entertainment. But next week is his certainly probably still less least seen film, right?

[Griffin]

Yeah, I think so.

[David]

I mean it's not hard to watch the Sugar Land Express. But you know, but you know, as.

[Griffin]

I've been telling people that we're doing this series telling people in confidence because hasn't been officially announced and. And. And friends go, what's coming up? And I go, we're finally doing Early Spielberg, they go, oh, man, Sugar Land. I do feel like there's a growing Sugar Land. I don't want to say appraisal, but I. Because it's different.

[David]

You watch it and you're like, this is interesting. He never quite did something like this again.

[Griffin]

And it's so good.

[David]

And it's good.

[Griffin]

Yeah. Sliding door. I don't bemoan the filmography we got out of him, but it's interesting to watch and just go like, he could have just made 15 of these and just been a really good filmmaker who, someone like Pauline Kael hailed and never really had a commercial breakthrough. Yeah, there is a. There is a big, you know, element of luck even involved for someone who perhaps innately is the most gifted filmmaker of all time. Like, I think just in terms of raw understanding of the relationship between images and story, he is watching these early ones, it's just kind of mind boggling how fully formed he was out the gate.

[David]

And yet I probably wouldn't put Duel in the top 20 Spielbergs. No, that.

[Griffin]

Only I might put it right outside though, right?

[David]

Yeah, yeah, that kind of. Though maybe it's number one.

[Griffin]

Interesting.

[David]

No, I'm joking. Or am I?

[Griffin]

Who knows?

[David]

Anything else? Griffin, we're done. We did it.

[Griffin]

Duel, blank check. Season 10, year of miracles.

[David]

Wait, we're season 10 now?

[Griffin]

No, year 10.

[David]

There you go.

[Griffin]

It's like season like 50. All right, we should do that. We should figure that out as well. What number season this is.

[David]

Someone figured that out. Not us.

[Griffin]

Through miniseries.

[David]

Yeah.

[Ben]

Let us know.

[Griffin]

Yeah. But yeah, Year of miracles. I'm calling it. Get ready for all bangers. No complaints. All fun. Yeah. And excited. Excited to talk about these movies.

[David]

Yeah.

[Griffin]

Yep. Look, there was a certain amount of strategy when I was like, is it kind of a bold move to just start off year 10 and finally settle the balance of Spielberg?

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

And your immediate response was. Hm. Those are the exact kind of movies I'm going to be in the mood to rewatch with two recently born babies.

[David]

Yes.

[Griffin]

And I said, David, it was. It was part of the thinking.

[David]

Right?

[Griffin]

Yeah. Well, I'm glad we're ending on a high note. I don't know.

[David]

I'm done. I'm done. Okay.

[Griffin]

I'm done too.

[David]

I'm sitting on the top of the cliff throwing pebbles at the corpse of this episode.

[Griffin]

Thank you all for listening. The episode was a triumph.

[David]

Yeah, it was.

[Griffin]

Tune in next week for Sugarland Express. And as always.