Selects: Can movies be cursed?

Summary

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Stuff You Should Know — "Selects: Can movies be cursed?" (May 9, 2026)

Episode Theme Overview

Josh and Chuck revisit the age-old question: Can movies be cursed? Blending classic SYSK humor and curiosity, the duo explores notorious Hollywood productions and the tragic, bizarre, or unlucky events surrounding them. They analyze whether patterns of misfortune are mere coincidence, cursed destinies, or just the hazardous reality of early (and even modern) movie-making.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. What’s Behind Movie Curse Myths?

• The Premise: Many believe some films are “cursed” due to strings of misfortune or tragedy affecting their casts and crews.
• Reality Check: As Ed Grabianowski (the “Grabster”) notes, a lot of movie curse lore is coincidental or stems from the accidents and risks inherent to filmmaking, especially in earlier cinematic history (06:42).
  • "There is no way that anything can ever be really cursed." — Chuck (06:52)
• Marketing’s Role: Studios sometimes amplify these tales for publicity, especially with horror films (07:19).

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2. Early High-Risk Filmmaking — Tragedy by Negligence

• Examples from the Silent and Golden Age of Hollywood:

  • Noah’s Ark (1928): Used 600,000 gallons of water for a flood scene. Three extras drowned, and one had to have his leg amputated (08:03).
    • "They did one take, and three extras drowned. One guy who did survive had to have a leg amputated…" — Josh (08:03)
  • They Died With Their Boots On (1941): During a recreated cavalry charge, three extras died in a single shot (09:12).

• Modern Example: Twilight Zone: The Movie (1983)—Vic Morrow and two children were killed in a helicopter accident (09:41).

Takeaway:

Filming used to be life-threatening, and many early “curses” are more about negligence than the supernatural.

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3. Poltergeist: A Textbook "Cursed Movie" Case

Why it’s considered cursed:

• 1982’s Poltergeist (and its sequels) saw several cast members die unexpectedly, including:
  • Dominique Dunne (Dana): Murdered by her boyfriend shortly after the first film’s release (11:16).
    • "She was murdered by her boyfriend...the signs were all there. It was one of those things that could have been prevented." — Chuck (11:16)
  • Heather O'Rourke (Carol Anne): Died of sepsis from an intestinal blockage at age 12 after filming the third installment (13:51).
  • Will Sampson: Died a year after filming (heart and lung transplant) (15:11).
  • Julian Beck: Died of stomach cancer before Poltergeist II was released (16:03).

Josh and Chuck’s take:
Most deaths were tragic but explainable; their proximity to film production creates the illusion of a curse (13:38, 16:32).

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4. The Wizard of Oz: Joy On Screen, Trouble Off

• Physical Harm: Tin Man actor Buddy Ebsen hospitalized by aluminum powder, replaced by Jack Haley (17:12). Haley’s makeup led to a severe eye infection (17:21).
• Margaret Hamilton (Wicked Witch): Burned during pyrotechnic mishap (17:42).
• Urban Legends:
  • The "hanged Munchkin" myth — debunked as a bird on set (18:20).
• Cast Tragedies:
  • Auntie Em (Clara Blandick): Died by suicide at age 81 (19:46).
  • Frank Morgan (Wizard): Badly injured in a car wreck (20:00).
  • Judy Garland: MGM’s abuse led to substance dependence and an early death (barbiturate overdose at 47) (21:00).

“She was basically owned by MGM...They took her and they said, you can’t get fat, so smoke 80 cigarettes a day. They got her on amphetamines...if there was any real tragedy that came out of The Wizard of Oz, it was Judy Garland’s life.” — Josh (20:24–21:13)

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5. The Superman “Curse” — Misfortune in the Cape

• George Reeves: Original TV Superman, synonymous with the role but unable to escape typecasting. Died by suicide at 45 (27:19).
  • Anecdote: Once had to talk a child out of shooting him at a public appearance (25:18).
• Christopher Reeve: Broadway and film Superman, paralyzed in a horseback accident, died young. Wife Dana died of cancer soon after (29:14).
• Chuck’s summary: "You put those two together and everyone says, well, Superman is a cursed role." (29:44)

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6. The Conqueror: Cursed by Fallout, Not Magic

• John Wayne’s miscast Genghis Khan epic was filmed near a radioactive nuclear test site in Utah (30:18).
  • 91 of 220 cast and crew later developed cancer; John Wayne, Agnes Moorehead, Susan Hayward, and Dick Powell all died from it (31:56). Photos exist of Wayne on set with a Geiger counter.
  • Experts estimate three times the normal cancer rate for the group.

"That area was crawling with bad stuff...They were just running around in there filming movies." — Chuck (30:36)

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7. The Omen: Where the Curse Lore Gets Scary

• Cast and crew experienced a string of strange, often deadly incidents:
  • Gregory Peck’s son’s suicide before production (35:10)
  • Both Peck’s and the producer’s planes struck by lightning en route to filming (35:56)
  • Crew's hotel (London Hilton) bombed by the IRA—crew not present at the time (36:16)
  • Private jet hired for aerial shots was switched last minute; the replacement crashed, killing everyone onboard (37:18)
  • Animal handler killed by a tiger at the sanctuary where filming occurred (38:02)
  • Most infamous: SFX artist John Richardson in a car crash; his assistant was decapitated. He claimed he woke up to see a sign for the town of Ommen, 66.6km away—though no evidence supports the sign’s existence (39:24).
    • "If that sign existed, there would be so many pictures...There’s not a single one." — Josh (39:26)
• Ed Grabianowski’s view: Out of all, The Omen’s events are the eeriest, but still best explained by coincidence.

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8. Brainstorm & Rebel Without a Cause: Tragedy or Curse?

• Brainstorm (1983):
  • Final film of Natalie Wood, who drowned under mysterious circumstances while with husband Robert Wagner and co-star Christopher Walken (43:07). Her case remains officially “undetermined."
• Rebel Without a Cause (1955):
  • James Dean: Died in a car crash.
  • Sal Mineo: Murdered in 1976.
  • Natalie Wood: Drowned.
  • Three young tragic deaths from one film stoked curse rumors.

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9. The Movies That Never Were—Unfilmed Scripts “Cursed” by Death

• A Confederacy of Dunces:

  • Legendary setbacks: Each actor approached to play Ignatius J. Reilly—John Belushi, John Candy, Chris Farley—died young. Plans with Will Ferrell also fizzled due to unrelated tragedies (49:22).

    "You finally go to Ferrell and they’re like, well, he’s in shape...he’s probably not gonna drop dead, right?...But that didn’t happen either." — Chuck (50:42–51:09)

  • Producer killed, Katrina hits New Orleans—project remains stalled.

• A Took:

  • John Belushi, John Candy, Chris Farley, and Sam Kinison—all were set to star as a fish-out-of-water Inuit and died prematurely during development (53:01–54:47).

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On what makes a movie "cursed":
  • “When you start putting these things together, and then you get rid of the things that don’t support your point, you got a curse on your hands.” — Josh (10:03)
• About Judy Garland:
  • “If there was any real tragedy that came out of The Wizard of Oz, it was Judy Garland's life.” — Josh (21:13)
• On The Omen’s string of near-misses:
  • “All these close calls actually make it seem like...this movie production wasn’t cursed, but instead was actually being looked out for by the dark Lord.” — Josh (36:39)
• On cursed movie scripts:
  • “A Confederacy of Dunces just kept getting put off and off and off...Will Ferrell is indestructible, right? But that didn’t happen either...” — Josh & Chuck (49:49–51:09)

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Timestamps for Major Segments

• [06:42] — Ed Grabianowski’s article, “10 Movies That Were Supposedly Cursed”; definition of movie curses
• [08:03] — Early Hollywood tragedies (Noah’s Ark)
• [11:04] — The Poltergeist curse dissected
• [17:12] — Wizard of Oz on-set injuries, legends, and real-life tragedy
• [25:18] — Superman curse: George Reeves’ life and legacy
• [30:18] — John Wayne’s The Conqueror and radioactive locations
• [35:10] — The Omen and its chain of misfortunes
• [43:07] — Natalie Wood, Brainstorm, and curse transfer from Rebel Without a Cause
• [49:22] — The never-filmed, “cursed” adaptations (Confederacy of Dunces, A Took)

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SYSK Signature Tone & Humor

Josh and Chuck keep things light, skeptical, and funny—even when touching on dark or tragic material. Their banter is genuine, peppered with digressions, mutual ribbing, and pop culture nods (“It wasn’t Owen Wilson!” re: Judy Garland biopic, 21:44; “You lost me at Ben Affleck,” re: Hollywoodland, 26:50).

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Summary for the Uninitiated

This episode offers a sweeping, skeptical, and entertaining look at the concept of “cursed movies.” Using vivid examples from Hollywood history, Josh and Chuck show how dangerous working conditions, tragedy, and coincidence often get woven into myths of supernatural malice. The real “curse,” it turns out, may simply be the peril and unpredictability of filmmaking itself.

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If you loved this episode: Watch for mentions of other classic SYSK topics (chaos theory, the Stonewall Uprising, LSD, and more), and listen for moments when the guys get philosophical about why we humans crave stories about fate—and why the truth is sometimes much stranger (and sadder) than a simple curse.

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Transcript

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[Chuck Bryant]

Hey, everybody. Happy Saturday, Chuck. Here with your Saturday selects. And this week I think it inspired me because recently we did an episode in the movie Roar, the most dangerous movie ever made, supposedly. And so let's go back to November of 2017, the 16th to be exact, to talk about movies being cursed in this episode that runs at 56 minutes long. Can movies be cursed? Please enjoy it right now.

[Josh Clark]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartradio. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry. My tongue is super big today for some reason.

[Chuck Bryant]

Gross.

[Josh Clark]

And this is stuff you should know.

[Chuck Bryant]

I know.

[Josh Clark]

It's like I sound like Peter Overby, for God's sake.

[Chuck Bryant]

Who's that?

[Josh Clark]

You know that guy's voice anywhere? He's like an NPR reporter.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And like, he. He has me even beat for the large tongues. Candy sucking sound. Do you remember when we first came out and people would write in and be like, tell Josh, stop sucking on candy while he's popping. I'd just be like, that's mine. That's my normal voice, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

Thanks a lot.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, appreciate that. But now. Now that we're high rollers, they provided me with a private nurse to suction out the saliva every 30 seconds. Oh, my God. And then Jerry has to edit it out. So gross. Gross, but true, right? Like a cursed movie story. True.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Do you know what I hate at the dentist? Besides everything, man.

[Josh Clark]

That was a pretty good segue.

[Chuck Bryant]

I know. That I just totally mowed over.

[Josh Clark]

That's all right.

[Chuck Bryant]

I Hate at the Dentist now, you know, you don't have to spit anymore because they do have those suction things, but it's still like, I still do the fake swallow. You know how it feels like it builds up in the back of your mouth so, like, they'll be in your mouth and you'll just go like that. I hate that.

[Josh Clark]

That's funny.

[Chuck Bryant]

Do you do that? Does everyone do that?

[Josh Clark]

The gag reflex thing?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, it's not even a gag reflex. It's just this.

[Josh Clark]

The hard swallow, that dry swallow.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. The sort of swallow reflex, if that's such a thing.

[Josh Clark]

You feel like you're going to break your vocal cords or your throat muscles. God, I hate that. I know what you mean. I don't hate it, though. I think it's kind of. Yeah. Not enjoyable, but I don't know.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I hate it when they talk to you and expect you to talk back.

[Josh Clark]

They can talk, but. Yeah, there can't be any questions involved. Maybe rhetorical questions that you can shrug at.

[Chuck Bryant]

My last hygienist, I really didn't care for her. Like, it was a personality thing. And they have TVs at my dentist that they'll put down in front of you, which is fine. I don't really care. But she would stop and look and make comments about the news and stuff. Oh, yeah, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Why don't they just let him do his job?

[Chuck Bryant]

I didn't like it. It was really annoying. And then I came back in not too long ago, and there was a new hygienist for me, and she was awesome. And on the way out, I was like, by the way. I was like, I won't say her name. I was like. But this new hygienist I really like a lot. And she was like, what about before? I was like, I wasn't crazy about her. And she went, no one was, and you guys need to tell us that. And we let her go because we got all these complaints started flooding in. I was like, well, I feel bad. Like, I don't want to get anyone fired.

[Josh Clark]

Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

But I didn't. There was. She wasn't good, huh?

[Josh Clark]

So anyway, was this in Brookhaven?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Is it Brookhaven? How do you know where my dentist is?

[Josh Clark]

Well, I just had an experience in Brookhaven, and I'm like, this town is just small enough for that to be possible.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I'll go ahead and shout out my dentist, the great Dr. Darryl Kimchi. She's wonderful.

[Josh Clark]

Kimchi, huh? That's one of my favorite foods.

[Chuck Bryant]

But is that your dentist?

[Josh Clark]

No.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

But it's possible that we're talking about, like, a hygienist that gets fired pretty frequently.

[Chuck Bryant]

Maybe, you know, she's making the rounds in Buckhead, Brookhaven.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Dr. Darrell Kimchi of Atlanta Cosmetic Sports Dentistry.

[Josh Clark]

Wow, that is quite a shout out. I think Dr. Kimchi owes us some free Kimchi. Maybe as a thank you.

[Chuck Bryant]

She's sort of a celebrity dentist. She does a lot of the sports people in Atlanta and the Real Housewives maybe. But I went in and they have memorabilia up everywhere. And when the TV show was out, I gave them a poster and they never put it up.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, no way. That's hilarious.

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Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Wow, that's great.

[Chuck Bryant]

That reminds me of the Friends when Joey tried to get his headshot up at the. I think it was like, the dry cleaner or something.

[Josh Clark]

Man, that is so stuff you should know.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, well, this has got a

[Josh Clark]

nice loose start indeed, Chuck. But this is a fun one. But let's begin, shall we?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, yeah, this was written by the Grabster. The article is 10 Movies that Were supposedly cursed. And Ed goes to great lengths to point out how there is no way that anything can ever be really cursed.

[Josh Clark]

Right. I think probably his couple lines where he's, like, just so stupid, where it was edited out. You know, I get the feeling you

[Chuck Bryant]

got to sign this was like, oh, God, are you kidding me? I want to write about real stuff, like Satanic Panic.

[Josh Clark]

But he does love writing about movies. He's definitely a movie guy.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Especially horror movies. And it seems like more than any other movie, horror movies, they're the variety that. That tend to be associated with curses more than other types. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Or at least the marketing department cooks that up.

[Josh Clark]

So, yeah, that's definitely par for the course these days. But There was a more innocent, gentler time when. When rumors of Satan influencing the production of a movie was a legitimate rumor. It wasn't a PR stunt.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

So, like you said, Ed goes to some trouble to point out what's actually behind the idea of a movie curse. That some things are bound to happen on just about any movie set.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Especially when you stop and consider, especially in the early days, the kind of stuff they were doing with the technology they were working with at the time. Of course, bad things happened on movie sets. Of course people died.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Like, for example, I looked this up, right? There was a 1928 movie called Noah's Ark, and they used 600,000 gallons of water to create the flood scene. One take. They did one take, and three extras drowned. One guy who did survive had to have a leg amputated. It was broken so badly. Because this is the flood scene and you needed to basically get it as real as possible. Isn't that crazy?

[Chuck Bryant]

That is, yeah. Especially back in those days. But they didn't care back then, Right.

[Josh Clark]

They were just like, oh, they're just extras. Who cares? Although John Wayne, it turns out, was an extra on that movie. But he survived, obviously. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

And he factors into another curse.

[Josh Clark]

He does. He also worked in the special effects department on that movie. Or prop. Prop. Sorry, Prop.

[Chuck Bryant]

Like, special effects was what he did early cgi.

[Josh Clark]

Right. He would clap the coconuts together for

[Chuck Bryant]

all the horse scenes.

[Josh Clark]

But. But hold on, I have another one. Okay, so this is another movie. Years later, they died with their boots on. I think it's about the Charge of the Light Brigade, maybe.

[Chuck Bryant]

Okay.

[Josh Clark]

It was a 1941 movie starring Errol Flynn. And during this cavalry charge that they recreated, three extras in that movie died just in that one shot, that one scene. One of the guys was thrown from his horse and he threw his sword, like, away from him, unfortunately, threw it ahead of himself, and the sword stuck into the ground, handle first, and he was impaled on the sword.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

This happened on a movie set. And it's not just like back in the day, either. 1983, the Twilight Zone movie, very famously, there was a disaster, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. That was very sad. That's when Vic Morrow and two children were chopped up by a helicopter blade very infamously. It was terrible, terrible tragedy.

[Josh Clark]

Yes. Shin Yi Chan and Micah Din Lee were the two child actors who were killed. So things do happen on movie sets. And again, when you stop and think about what they're doing, it's often very dangerous. So what Ed is saying is, when you Start to put these things together and then you get rid of all of the things that don't support your point. You got a curse on your hands.

[Chuck Bryant]

Should we start with Poltergeist? Yes, Poltergeist. That's one where people always list this as a cursed movie because quite a few of the actors died sort of unexpectedly after the movie. And then Ed goes on to say very astutely, but it's also a textbook example of why the idea of curses is silly. Have I mentioned the curses are silly? So silly. Over and over. So three of the. Those first three poltergeists. 82, 86 and 88. I didn't see the remake, did you?

[Josh Clark]

I didn't even know there was one.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, of course there was. They remade it a few years ago.

[Josh Clark]

No, I didn't. I didn't see it.

[Chuck Bryant]

No. I don't think it was very popular. But Dominic Dunn.

[Josh Clark]

Dominique.

[Chuck Bryant]

Dominique. Excuse me. Her father was Dominic Dunn, correct?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And her brother was Griffin Dunn. Or is Griffin Dunn.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, she was. Well, she was murdered. She was murdered by her boyfriend, John Sweeney. Yeah. And that was a very disturbing case. Have you ever poked around that case?

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Like the signs were all there. It was one of those things that could have been prevented. And he got away with it for the most part.

[Josh Clark]

He did like three years in prison. And Dominic Dunn, her father, he was there every day for the trial of the man and was just crushed by the injustice of the sentence that the guy received.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, it changed his life. He became a crusader.

[Josh Clark]

It did. Yeah. You can read some of the best coverage of high profile murder cases in the pages of Vanity Fair that he covered for years and years and years as a direct result of him basically covering his own daughter's murderer's trial.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. O.J. very famously. He covered that case.

[Josh Clark]

He did. And he apparently the Duns spent a great deal of time basically keeping tabs on John Sweeney for years.

[Chuck Bryant]

He was a chef for a while.

[Josh Clark]

He was.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I even started tracking him down. I just went down the rabbit hole like six or eight months ago on this for some reason.

[Josh Clark]

Really? Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

This is one of those things where you see something on Facebook and then all of a sudden you go, oh, yeah. And then you go down the rabbit hole. And I was trying to find this guy. I was like, where is this guy? Where is he? And the last I saw he was some chef somewhere. I think he had changed his name even. Of course. Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

To John Mora. M A U R A. Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, keep changing that name, buddy, because it's Gonna follow you around.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And, I mean, like, there was no question whether he did it or not. He admitted to it. Like, he told this guy who had been in the house at the time, in Dominique Dunn's house, rehearsing lines to call the police, that he just killed his girlfriend.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

But, yeah, he. He was hounded for many years, and I guess toward the end of his life, Dominic Dunn said, you know what? I'm not gonna waste my life, like, keeping tabs on this guy anymore. And just. Just dropped it. But, yeah, there's a lot of people out there who don't like that dude.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I would imagine so. So. So she died by murder, then the young girl.

[Josh Clark]

And this is like, a couple months after Poltergeist came out. Right. So it was very close to the production.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, yeah. She was not in the sequels, obviously. Heather o' Rourke was the little girl in Poltergeist, and she passed away after. In 1988, after Poltergeist 2 was wrapped. And she initially was diagnosed with the flu. We talk about this in our flu episode a little bit. But what she really had was an intestinal blockage. And at the tender age of 12, she had a heart attack and sepsis and passed away. Super tragic.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And so those two dying so close to the production of the actual movie, she died. It was Poltergeist 3, I believe that Heather O' Rourke died after filming. They were basically done.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, did Ed get it wrong?

[Josh Clark]

I got it wrong.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man.

[Josh Clark]

And then Dominique, again died just a couple months after the first Poltergeist came out. So that's like one big hallmark of a movie being cursed. Story is the deaths that happen typically need to happen either during production or right around production.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. So those two are the big ones. But then people say, oh, oh, still not convinced. Well, listen to this. In Poltergeist 2, there was an actor named Will Sampson who played Taylor, the medicine man who helps the family.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And he is better known for playing Chief in One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

One of the great characters of all time. He died, I guess, after filming, a few years after filming. The year after filming in 1987, he died following a heart and lung transplant.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. He had a history of health issues. He was a giant man. And so that was, again, tied to the curse. But what can you say about someone who just dies, sort of natural causes

[Josh Clark]

after a heart and lung transplant? I think there's pretty good odds. Yeah. And then there's Julian Beck, who played the scary, scary, scary Preacher Kane, also in Poltergeist 2.

[Chuck Bryant]

Man, he was creepy.

[Josh Clark]

He died, I guess, before Poltergeist 2 actually came out. So that would have been close to the production as well. So it checks those boxes. But he died of stomach cancer, and he apparently had a long standing issue with battling it as well. So you can make the case. It doesn't really count. But are you really trying to make a case or a curse about curses? Yeah. Well, let's just talk about him instead. How about that?

[Chuck Bryant]

Agreed. Okay, what's next?

[Josh Clark]

The wizard of Oz is Next.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's right. 1939. Great, great movie. But a great movie that was marred by. For such a happy movie, it had some. Some rough stuff going on because it was in the early days of making movies. And like you said earlier, back then, it was. They didn't know or care as much about safety. Like, for instance, the Tin Man, Buddy Epson, they said, all right, we need to make you look silver, and so we'll just coat you with aluminum powder. And that stuff was really dangerous. He went to the hospital. It irritated his lungs, and he could not even continue in the role.

[Josh Clark]

No. Luckily, he survived to go on to play Jed, the dad in Beverly Hillbillies. Thank God. But he was out of the wizard of Oz.

[Chuck Bryant]

He was.

[Josh Clark]

So Buddy Ebsen was replaced by dad Jack Haley. And they said, well, we probably shouldn't use that same aluminum powder. So they used an aluminum paste, which didn't get into his lungs, but did give him a really bad eye infection, man. Right. So the aluminum just. The Tin man roll itself had a bunch of problems, but that was just one of many.

[Chuck Bryant]

Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the west, she was burned pretty badly with some of the pyrotechnics from the movie. And I think she. She was only. She was hospitalized, but she came back and, you know, completed work on the movie.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. But she said she wasn't going to do any more firework. Apparently the trap door that she was standing on, the timing of it wasn't. Wasn't right. Yeah. So it didn't open up and drop her right before the fireworks went off, but did it simultaneous to the fireworks going off? Which is not what you want.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, but it was 1939.

[Josh Clark]

Right. So they were like, whatever. What are you going to do?

[Chuck Bryant]

There's the very famous urban legend, which is not true, but it bears mentioning that one of the Munchkins hanged himself in the background of a scene. And if you just Google image, that junk hanged Munchkin, wizard of Oz, it Will have a screen cap with a little circle around. I mean, he doesn't even look. It just looks like something that is not a tree. In other words, it's not attached to the ground.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

It doesn't necessarily look like a hanging munchkin, but apparently there was a bird.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, it doesn't look like a bird to me either, though. Like, supposedly it's a silhouette of a bird. And if you watch a close up of the video of it, it does sway back and forth above the ground. So, I mean, you can see where people came up with that for sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. But that is not the case. There was no munchkin that. That just couldn't take it anymore.

[Josh Clark]

There's actually. There's a really great horror fiction story by, I think, a guy named Steve Nege called the Hanged man of Oz. Looking up and reading it's pretty good, but it's about this dude kind of becoming obsessed with that. That rumor and seeing it on video and not being able to unsee it and all the stuff that happens after.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

I think it's Steve Nege. It's definitely called the Hanged man of Oz.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, I'll check that out. Other tragedies on wizard of oz. Auntie M, Ms. Clara Blandick. She killed herself

[Josh Clark]

at age 81.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And she left in her suicide note that she was going on her greatest adventure.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, that's kind of nice.

[Josh Clark]

I guess. So. It's about as pleasant as it can get. With the suicide note, I think.

[Chuck Bryant]

The wizard himself, Frank Morgan, he was injured in a car wreck just a few months after they released the movie. And then, of course, Judy Garland had one of the more tragic lives in Hollywood history.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

They're making a movie about her soon, I think.

[Josh Clark]

I can't believe they haven't already.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think they've done it on tv, but not a big movie thing, I don't think.

[Josh Clark]

She was basically owned by mgm. Yeah, like, almost. Almost the definition of being owned. Right. She was, like, discovered at age 13, I think, in Kansas, actually, at a state fair. And they said, well, we're just gonna buy you from your parents, basically. And they took her and they said, you can't get fat, so smoke 80 cigarettes a day. Yeah, they basically prescribed her that. They got her on amphetamines to keep her going. They let her have one square meal a day.

[Chuck Bryant]

Terrible.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Really. So she. And she. Yeah, if there. Ed makes a really good point. If there was any real tragedy that came out of the wizard of Oz, it was Judy Garland's life.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, absolutely. So she eventually would die by suicide herself on an overdose of barbiturates. And I think it's. She had the equivalent of 10 second all capsules in her.

[Josh Clark]

Lord.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Well, man, that's sad. I want to see that movie. Do you know who's going to play her?

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, man, I just saw this the other day. I can't remember who, but I remember thinking, yeah, good casting.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Like, it wasn't Owen Wilson.

[Josh Clark]

That'd be pretty fair. Troubles. Come on, get happy.

[Chuck Bryant]

So she was 47 years young, by the way, which is far, far too young to have lost Judy Garland.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

You want to take a break?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. On that downer? Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, we'll come back and talk about the man of Steel right after.

[Cindy Crawford]

Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford, and I'm the founder of Meaningful Beauty. Well, I don't know about you, but, like, I never liked being told, oh, wow, you look so good for your age. Like, why even bother saying that? Why don't you just say you look great at any age? Every age. That's what Meaningful Beauty is all about. We create products that make you feel confident in your skin at the age you are now. Meaningful Beauty. Beautiful skin at every age. Learn [e-mail].

[Ben Walter]

Every small business owner has that one moment that could have broken them. But remarkably, it didn't. Hi, I'm Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business. And on season three of the Unshakeables, my co host, Kathleen Griffith and I are bringing you more incredible stories of overcoming the impossible. Listen to the Unshakeables wherever you get your podcasts and learn [e-mail] podcast JPMorgan Chase bank and a member FDIC Copyright 20 and 26 JPMorgan Chase Co.

[Hershey's Advertiser]

One crunchy bite of Hershey's Cookies and Cream bar, and I'm taken right back to college. Move in. Day I was a little overwhelmed by the newness of it all.

[Cindy Crawford]

Boxes were everywhere.

[Hershey's Advertiser]

I needed a break from unpacking. But just as I was able to take a breath and open my Hershey's Cookies and Cream bar, my new roommate Rachel walked in. I offered her a piece, but she said no. Then after a beat, she said, actually, those are my favorite ones. We left, the ice was broken, and we've been friends ever since.

[Cindy Crawford]

Hershey's. It's your happy place.

[Josh Clark]

All right, Chuck. So there's actually a role, Superman. That's considered a cursed role. Did you know that?

[Chuck Bryant]

I did know that because I remember as a kid, even though I'm not, you know, 65 years old. I like to watch reruns of stuff like Gilligan's island and Green Acres and Petticoat Junction.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, really? I've seen Petticoat Junction. Is it good?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, you know, it was one of those old shows. They're all great.

[Josh Clark]

What about F Troop? F Troop's probably one of my favorites of all time.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I watched F Troop. I watch all that stuff. Superman, the name of the show that I watched was called Adventures of Superman. And that was straight up from the 1950s and still in reruns in the mid-70s, at least, because that's where I watched it. And that was the one starring George Reeves as the not even very muscular and slightly tubby Superman.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, like that kind of like 50s fit, which kind of barrel chested, chunky and just weird, like weirdly shaped. Yeah, like, what were they. What kind of exercise were they doing back then?

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I don't think they did exercise back then. Wasn't that the deal?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, is that what it was?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, they were just like, you know, you're gonna play Superman, so eat a bunch of steak, right? Like, buff up a little bit. Right. Do some push ups, maybe.

[Josh Clark]

So he. George Reeve. Reeves. He's George Reeves. Christopher Reeve is not plural, singular version, Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

George Reeves became synonymous with Superman. Like, everybody thought of him as Superman. He liked. Like, he wouldn't be cast in anything else. Right. And he had some. He had to put up with quite a bit being known as Superman or recognizes Superman. Apparently kids would come up and like, punch him in the stomach to see if he was made of steel. I looked into it. I learned this years ago from the Uncle John's Bathroom reader. And I looked into. And I think it actually may be correct, but at one, like, public appearance, he had to talk a kid out of shooting him. Like, this kid had brought his father's loaded.38 caliber pistol to shoot Superman to see if the bullets really bounced off of him. And George Reeve got the kid to put to hand the gun over to, like, a cop or something because he told them that, sure, of course the bullet would bounce off of him, but it could ricochet and hurt somebody else who is standing nearby.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that was in the Ben Affleck movie Hollywoodland.

[Josh Clark]

Is that right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Is about George Reeves. And that scene was in the movie.

[Josh Clark]

Okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

And he does. He talks. I've heard of it. Yeah, it's okay.

[Josh Clark]

It's not great, but you lost me at Ben Affleck.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's not bad, but, yeah, he talks. The kid out of it in the movie and said exactly what he said, like, of course, blah, blah, blah. And then he takes it. Then you can see him. He's just like, oh, God, Jesus. Like, I almost got shot.

[Josh Clark]

Right? Yes. Yeah. That was. I can't imagine the relief that would wash over you after that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So George Reeves. Reeves.

[Josh Clark]

Reeves, yeah. He's the plural. It's tough to keep up with.

[Chuck Bryant]

It is. He had a very sort of sad life, which is in that Hollywood land movie. He, like you said, he couldn't get other work and he was only known as Superman. So I think he turned to the booze and was not a happy guy. And eventually, In June of 1959, he was having a party at his own house. His fiancee was throwing a party, and he said, I'm gonna go upstairs and shoot myself in the head.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And Ed makes it sound like he was upset about the noise or something like that from the party.

[Chuck Bryant]

I mean, that may have been the straw, but he was upset about life.

[Josh Clark]

I gotcha.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I got the sense, like, legitimately depressed, you know, like, clinically depressed.

[Josh Clark]

Right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I mean, like, it's. It's. As we get to know more and more about, like, depression, it's so much easier to look back at, like, you know, people who were depressed before, but that you just never really kind of pegged them like that because you. People didn't know about that kind of thing then. It's just sad to see, like, how many people suffered like that because no one knew what was going on or they just thought it was the blues or you should just snap out of it. We've never done one on depression. I think we should have we not. I don't believe we have, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, then we should definitely do that.

[Josh Clark]

We have done one on Cats, and

[Chuck Bryant]

then Christopher Reeve played Superman. And that is why some say it is a cursed role, because he was very sadly injured in a horse riding accident in the mid-90s, which left him paralyzed from the neck down. And he became very much an inspiration to people because he became an advocate for research into spinal cord injuries. And he went on to direct and even act some as well after that.

[Josh Clark]

And Ed also points out that after Christopher Reeve died, his wife Dana, who saw him through this whole thing, she died of cancer, like, two years afterward.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. I've just. Man, I felt so awful for that family and those kids.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I mean, just to get, like, that random to be thrown from a horse and then just be paralyzed from the neck down. Yeah. So you put those Two together. And everyone says, well, Superman is a cursed role.

[Chuck Bryant]

Correct.

[Josh Clark]

What would the Grabster say?

[Chuck Bryant]

No such thing as curses.

[Josh Clark]

So stupid.

[Chuck Bryant]

The Conqueror is a movie that, like we said, John Wayne factored in. And this one was definitely. I don't know about cursed, but. Well, here's the story. It is very unlikely that John Wayne would play Mongolian Genghis Khan. He did though, but it was Hollywood back in the day where they just would cast white people to play whoever.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And he played Genghis Khan. And they shot the Conqueror in Utah, less than 150 miles from the Nevada Test Site. Sorry, Nevada Test Site, where our own US government set off 11 nuclear detonations above ground the year before.

[Josh Clark]

Just in the year before.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And that area was crawling with bad stuff. Lingering fallout in the dirt and in the, the rocks and like everything, it was in the soil and they were just running around in there filming movies.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I read this really interesting article in the Guardian called Hollywood and the Downwinders about the people who lived in that area who suffered tremendously health problems from the fallout. The government went to great lengths to cover it up and just assured everybody that there was no danger whatsoever to them, even though they were. Their, their houses and schoolyards were covered in radioactive ash. And so from filming there when this production came to town and they filmed there. Yeah, they were exposed to this, the same radioactive debris and dust and dirt that these people who lived in the area were as well. And as a result, supposedly something like 91 out of 220 cast and crew members who worked on location for the movie the Conqueror came down with cancer later on in life, which is highly unusual, statistically speaking.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, that's like 40 something percent of the crew. And years later in people magazine in 1980, they actually did a special report on that movie and the cancer connection. Like John Wayne, Agnes Moorhead, Jean Gerson, Susan Hayward, the director, Dick Powell, they all died of cancer. And in that People magazine, Dr. Robert C. Pendleton, he was director of Radiological health at the University of Utah, said that this would hold up in a court of law. That's such an outstanding number of people.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. And apparently not even just the people who worked on the production. It came to be known, the Conqueror came to be known, by the way, it's considered one of the best bad movies of the golden age of Hollywood. But people who visited the set battled cancer later in life too. Both of John Wayne's sons who came to visit him, there's a famous picture of him with two of his sons and a guy using a Geiger counter on set.

[Chuck Bryant]

Wow.

[Josh Clark]

Both of his sons had cancer later in life, too. But supposedly the family and Dick Powell's son Norman, who's interviewed in that article I read, they discount the idea that it was that people got cancer from that test site. They say maybe it was a contributing factor. But these people all smoked heavily, ate steak like, eight, eight times a day.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And that they. They had a lot of other risk factors that probably led to it. But it's also entirely possible that they may not have died of cancer as early, had they not filmed at that site.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, that Dr. Robert Pendleton said, essentially, that is about three times the rate of cancer that you would expect, so.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think that it definitely contributed.

[Josh Clark]

It's pretty curious. I want to see it. Have you ever seen the Conqueror?

[Chuck Bryant]

No.

[Josh Clark]

I got to see this.

[Chuck Bryant]

I've seen pictures of John Wayne as Genghis Khan.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. It's pretty. Pretty cringy. Yeah. Super racist. But apparently, like, even if you take all that away, just, like, the dialogue is awful. Like, the whole premise of it is he kidnaps a woman and forces her to marry him. And of course, romance blossoms as a result. You know, just the usual stuff from the 50s.

[Chuck Bryant]

The Omen.

[Josh Clark]

Yes.

[Chuck Bryant]

This is a good one because

[Josh Clark]

this

[Chuck Bryant]

is one of those where it's a movie about the devil. And so all these stories are going to be heightened because it's kind of like Poltergeist. Like, it wouldn't if this was When Harry Met Sally. And some of this stuff happened When

[Josh Clark]

Harry Met Sally was cursed with great laughs.

[Chuck Bryant]

It was. I love that movie. One of the few romantic comedies that were legit, good movies.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

You know.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

So let's go back to the beginning of this one. Obviously, the Omen, everyone knows, was the Great movie from 1976 about the antichrist taking. Well, not, I guess, possession, you could call it, but it's not like an exorcist thing. Basically, the Antichrist is this little boy. He comes back as a little boy.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, yeah. And a bad, bad, naughty little boy, Damien, who dresses like Angus Young.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, sure.

[Josh Clark]

Okay. So Damian is adopted by Gregory Peck in the movie. And in real life, Gregory Peck's son killed himself. He died by suicide, apparently. Out of the blue. No suicide note or anything like that.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

And this was before production had started, but after Peck had agreed to do the movie.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

And he still went ahead and did the movie. He left the US and went to London. And even on the way to London, before he even got to London to start shooting. Something happened to him, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. He said, I'm gonna get on a plane and fly to London. His plane was struck by lightning, Right. And the producer's plane was struck by lightning.

[Josh Clark]

Separately, these are two different planes struck by lightning on the way to start shooting in London.

[Chuck Bryant]

So this curse thing is feeling legit this time.

[Josh Clark]

This is the one that even Ed got a little shaky on, if you ask me.

[Chuck Bryant]

How about this? The hotel where they stayed, at least where the producer and some other folks stayed, was bombed by the Irish Republican Army.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, Hilton. The London Hilton.

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't know about a curse in that case because the mid-70s there was a lot of that going on.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, The IRA was bombing all sorts of stuff back then.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So it was like a restaurant where the crew and the cast went to eat one night.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, they were about to go eat there. So there's actually like all these close calls actually make it seem like this. This movie production wasn't cursed, but instead was actually being looked out for on high by the dark Lord. Right. So like the crew that was going to go to dinner didn't go to dinner. They didn't make it there in time for the bombing.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

The people who were staying in the hotel when it was bombed weren't there yet. There were a lot of close calls, but there was one close call that really is just mind numbing. I would have freaked out had I been one of the people involved.

[Chuck Bryant]

The private jet.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So they chartered a private jet to fly them around London to get some good aerial footage of London. And at the last minute, the charter service switched planes to accommodate a group of Japanese businessmen. Well, the plane that the Japanese businessman took, that the crew was supposed to be on, crashed on takeoff. Actually crashed into a car and killed everybody on board the plane. And everybody in the car it crashed into.

[Chuck Bryant]

How about that?

[Josh Clark]

And this is like a last minute switch too, supposedly.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Those make you think.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. That. I mean, curse or no, just knowing that you were that close would just get you.

[Chuck Bryant]

How about this? A worker that was in an animal sanctuary where they filmed and a worker there was killed by a tiger. Yep, that one. I think that one fits.

[Josh Clark]

I think that was the actual animal wrangler for the movie was killed.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, really? Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Which makes it even closer. This is the one though. Chuck, you gotta take this one home. This is the one that really gets everybody. Even though I think it's like a lot of it's made up.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. There was a car crash with John Richardson, who was a special Effects worker. He designed the effects for the Omen,

[Josh Clark]

including a very famous decapitation scene toward the end.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes, very famous. And. Oh, I thought that was the beginning.

[Josh Clark]

Was it the beginning?

[Chuck Bryant]

I think so. I think it's how it opened, if I remember. But it's been a while.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

Either way, he was in Holland after working on a movie called A Bridge Too Far and he was involved in a head on collision in his car and was injured, but his assistant Liz Moore was decapitated and killed in that car wreck. And he claims, and I don't know if this is lore or not. Sounds Laurish, it does sound lorish. But he claims that he awoke from that crash and looked up and there was a street sign where they crashed that said the distance to the next town and it was the town of Omen. O M N E N at a distance of 66.6 km.

[Josh Clark]

Bam.

[Chuck Bryant]

Now is that true?

[Josh Clark]

There's no way it's true because I looked up on the Internet that sign, trying to find any picture of that sign. If that sign existed, there would be so many pictures from tourists taking, taking photos of it on the Internet. There's not a single one.

[Chuck Bryant]

You think from back then those pictures would still be around?

[Josh Clark]

The sign would probably be. Still be around.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, see, I think that's the presumption that may not be true. Like they may have taken the sign down for that reason.

[Josh Clark]

Maybe. I guess that's possible. But no picture of it whatsoever. That no AP photographer went, I gotta get a picture of that sign. Nobody did that. There's existing photo of San Hanking for sure. Yeah, that's the one that makes me think like that. Although there is a town called Omen in the Netherlands, so it's entirely possible a crash took place by there.

[Chuck Bryant]

So that checks out.

[Josh Clark]

That definitely checks out. So we're going to take a break, everybody. We just decided, but we're going to be right back. So don't worry because we're going to talk some more about cursed movies.

[Cindy Crawford]

Hi, I'm Cindy Crawford and I'm the founder of Meaningful Beauty. Well, I don't know about you, but like, I never liked being told, oh, wow, you look so good for your age. Like, why even bother saying that? Why don't you just say you look great at any age, Every age. That's what Meaningful Beauty is all about. We create products that make you feel confident in your skin at the age you are now. Meaningful Beauty. Beautiful skin at every age. Learn more@meaningful beauty.com.

[Ben Walter]

Every small business owner has that one moment that could have broken them. But remarkably, it didn't. Hi, Ben. I'm Ben Walter, CEO of Chase for Business. And on season three of the Unshakeables, my co host Kathleen Griffith and I are bringing you more incredible stories of overcoming the impossible. Listen to the Unshakeables wherever you get your podcasts and learn [e-mail] podcast JPMorgan Chase bank and a member FDIC Copyright 20 and 26 JP Morgan, Chase Co.

[Hershey's Advertiser]

One crunchy bite of Hershey's Cookies and Cream bar and I'm taken right back to college. Move in. Day I was a little overwhelmed by the newness of it all.

[Cindy Crawford]

Boxes were everywhere.

[Hershey's Advertiser]

I needed a break from unpacking. But just as I was able to take a breath and open my Hershey's Cookies and Cream bar, my new roommate Rachel walked in. I offered her a piece, but she said no. Then after a beat, she said, actually, those are my favorite ones. We left, the ice was broken, and we've been friends ever since.

[Cindy Crawford]

Hershey's. It's your happy place.

[Josh Clark]

All right, we're back as I promised, and we're on to Brainstorm, which I think Ed was just kind of showing off with this one because he even says, like, you're not going to find this on many lists of cursed movies.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I'm not sure I get the curse in this one, but we'll talk about it. Brainstorm was the 1983 sci fi movie most famously known as being the great Natalie woods final film.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Because she died in real life after the movie, obviously, when she drowned after being out on a boat one night partying with her husband, Robert Wagner and her co star Christopher Walken.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Under some say, many say mysterious circumstances.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I was reading up about that case and they apparently had been drinking since at least four in the afternoon, and they made it back to the boat pretty late and they'd been drinking through dinner. They were all just pretty. Pretty crocked. Right. And supposedly Natalie Wood was either afraid of water and. Or couldn't swim. Yeah. And for some reason she had tried to get into a dinghy that was attached to the boat that they were staying on and probably hit her head and drowned.

[Chuck Bryant]

That's the story.

[Josh Clark]

That's the official story. Right. But apparently in 2012, it was reopened or her cause of death was changed from accident to undetermined.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, I mean, there were stories that she and Robert Wagner had been fighting. The captain, even many years later, said that he actually killed her. No charges were ever brought Christopher Walken, for his. I think he's never talked about it publicly, if I'm not mistaken.

[Josh Clark]

No, he finally did years and years later in a Playboy interview. And he basically said it was. It must have been an accident that no one knows, but it was she. Surely it was an accident. That was what he said.

[Chuck Bryant]

And that's probably the only thing he said because I didn't think he ever said anything.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah,

[Chuck Bryant]

he said it's an accident. Clearly.

[Josh Clark]

That was great because that was Christopher Walken with just a hint of John Travolta.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, it was a little Travolta escort. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, that's tied to Brainstorm as being a curse, I guess, because they were both in the movie. Even though the grabster points out that some people tie this back to a Rebel Without a Cause curse.

[Josh Clark]

Because that makes way more sense to me.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. Because James Dean and Sal Mineo and Natalie Wood then all died from that movie relatively young.

[Josh Clark]

She made it the longest. She was in her early 40s, I think, when she died. But James Dean died very young in a car crash right after Rebel Without a Cause was released, I think.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And I think when Salmonio murdered.

[Josh Clark]

He was murdered in 1976 at a pretty young age still. He was stabbed to death in the heart in an alley behind his house.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. So.

[Josh Clark]

By a pizza man, to me.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, really?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Huh. So weird.

[Josh Clark]

Well, it is, but I mean, we're talking about curses, so.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, I mean, usually the pizza man gets stabbed, you know what I'm saying?

[Josh Clark]

Right. I think this guy was actually a serial killing pizza man.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, wow.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

I just saw recently. Is there a serial killer in, like, central Florida?

[Josh Clark]

I don't know. I hadn't heard anything, but aren't there, like, at least 50 serial killers operating at any given point in time?

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't know. But I do know that I saw something that I heard that, like, three murders in the Tampa area were just linked.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

I think. And that made me think, it's been a while.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. You don't hear about them very often, but as I grow older and wiser, I'm starting to think, like, there's a lot more serial killers out there than you would imagine. That, like, human life has very little value to more people than you would hope, you know? Isn't that the darkest thing you can think of?

[Chuck Bryant]

It's pretty dark. The last high profile one I remember is btk. But surely there's been one since then, right?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, because he was like, early 2000s. Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

I know. But I can't think of one.

[Josh Clark]

I can't either, man.

[Chuck Bryant]

But it's been a long time since, you know, we've heard of, like, Jeffrey Dahmers and. Man, that was Ted Bundy's and stuff like that.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, thankfully. Sure.

[Chuck Bryant]

The Son of Sam's and the Zodiacs. It seems like the 70s and 80s were sort of the time where that was happening more.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I. I don't know why. Maybe it was harder to get away with it or easier to get away with it, or.

[Chuck Bryant]

I don't know.

[Josh Clark]

Who knows?

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm listening to that Heaven's Gate podcast. Have you heard that?

[Josh Clark]

I haven't heard that. No.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's good. It's from our buddy Chris Bannon over at Midroll Put It Out.

[Josh Clark]

Is he hosting it?

[Chuck Bryant]

No, no, no. Glenn Washington narrates it. But I've been through three episodes now. It's really good, but it's kind of funny, man. That time of the 60s and 70s, it was just. And we talked about it some in our Cults episode. It was. People just believed more in trying stuff out like that, and UFOs, and it was all just kind of in the mainstream.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

And it just all seems so unbelievable now. But back then, it wasn't. It was kind of believable that someone might join up with a cult.

[Josh Clark]

Well, a lot of people were on grass back then.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. On the grass.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. That's crazy. I gotta hear that podcast, man. That's. That's just a fascinating story.

[Chuck Bryant]

But now that means we can't do

[Josh Clark]

Heaven's Gate because Bannon did it.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And then they did. You know, you can't cover in 45 minutes what they cover in. Whatever, 10 episodes.

[Josh Clark]

10 sounds about right.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm not sure. I haven't. I don't think they released it all at once, but it feels like a 10.

[Josh Clark]

Let's say 7 to 10.

[Chuck Bryant]

So, anyway, can we close on Brainstorm, or are we still. Did we miss something?

[Josh Clark]

Yeah, I think.

[Capital One Bank Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

I mean, Natalie Wood's murder or death. Death, sorry. Is unsolved still. And it's a mystery. It may always be. I had no idea about that, about Robert Wagner. I just knew Natalie Wood drowned. I'd never heard anything about it being myster.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. It's long been mysterious and. Well, here's how we'll finish it then. She wasn't even able to finish filming on that movie. And they did use a body double to complete some of those scenes. It was a big flop.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. Yes, it was. Okay, Chuck. So for the last one Then we're gonna combine two together. All right.

[Chuck Bryant]

Great idea.

[Josh Clark]

Strangely, they are almost the same story, but with two different films. And both of them are films that were never made or have yet to be made, I guess is a better way to put it. The first one is A Confederacy of Dunces, the film adaptation of John Kennedy Toole's book, I guess. Novel.

[Chuck Bryant]

Great book.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. I've never read it. So good. I really want to have. Just never read it for some reason.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. It's a classic, classic book. And very sadly, Toole killed himself in 1969 and the book was not out yet. And part of the reason he killed himself is because he could not achieve success as a writer. His mother gets it published, it wins a Pulitzer Prize in 1981, and posthumously, he became a famous author.

[Josh Clark]

Yeah. So people, when it first was published in the early 80s, people were like, oh, we've got to turn this into a movie. This is a great idea. A great book will be a great movie. And they said, who can possibly play the main character Belushi? He'd be perfect. Belushi dies. Well, who's next? Let's wait a few years and let's see who else could play this main character? John Candy. John Candy died. Okay. All right, everybody, let's just take a breather. We'll wait a year or two. Who's the next guy who's gonna play this? I got it. This young up and comer named Chris Farley. Yeah, Chris Farley died. So A Confederacy of Dunces just kept getting put off and off and off. Right. And then finally, Will Ferrell steps in and it looks like it's going to happen because Will Ferrell is obviously indestructible, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah. And if you haven't gathered by hearing the people cast as Ignatius Riley, he was a heavy man in the book. So obviously Belushi, Candy and Farley were all big dudes and they all died. So if you finally to go to Ferrell and they're like, well, he's in shape and we can bulk him up, maybe use some special effects, I have no idea. But at least he's probably not gonna drop dead of a heart attack or something, right?

[Josh Clark]

He was a safe bet.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, but that didn't happen either. I think it was sort of in turnaround forever. It took a long time in development and eventually the head of the Louisiana State Film Commission, it's set in New Orleans, said they would have shot there. He was murdered and Hurricane Katrina came along to wipe out a lot of where the film would be shot. And so I think that kind of just helped to put it on indefinite hold at the very least.

[Josh Clark]

Right.

[Chuck Bryant]

But they are. I just saw. I was looking this up, see if it was back on track, and I saw there's a movie called the Butterfly and the Typewriter about John Kennedy Toole.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, neat.

[Chuck Bryant]

So they're doing a biopicon hymn with Owen Wilson. Thomas Mann. No, Thomas Mann playing Tool.

[Josh Clark]

Who's he?

[Chuck Bryant]

He's an actor.

[Josh Clark]

Right, Obviously. But what has he been in?

[Chuck Bryant]

The thing that I saw him in was a movie out a couple years ago called Me and Earl and the Dying Girl.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, okay.

[Chuck Bryant]

It's a good little indie film. So he's good. So he's playing Tool. And then I think Susan Sarandon plays his mom and Diane Kruger's in it as well, so.

[Josh Clark]

And Susan Sarandon's gonna totally try to date him too. I'll bet.

[Chuck Bryant]

Why would you say that?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, she likes younger dudes.

[Chuck Bryant]

Oh, really?

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

Well, maybe have a shot.

[Josh Clark]

She likes young hipster dudes. No, way younger than you, my friend.

[Chuck Bryant]

Maybe not good for her. I love Susan Strandon, so.

[Josh Clark]

Oh, yeah, More power to her. I think she's great. But she is totally gonna try to date Thomas Mann.

[Chuck Bryant]

All right, well, good for him too then.

[Josh Clark]

Sure. I'm not being judgy.

[Chuck Bryant]

No, I know.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, so then that's a confederacy of dunces, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

There's another script out there called A Took that has virtually the same story to it. Right. Well, but the story is totally different. But the curse story is virtually the same.

[Chuck Bryant]

Right.

[Josh Clark]

With A Took. It's like a fish out of water movie about an Inuit man who comes to New York and has to make his way in the big city, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes.

[Josh Clark]

That script was early on, it was optioned and John Belushi was scheduled to play the main character, right? That's right. Well, what happened to John Belushi? He died. So who was up next, Chuck?

[Chuck Bryant]

John Candy.

[Josh Clark]

Isn't that crazy?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Okay, well, John Candy passed. God rest his soul. Who was after John Candy?

[Chuck Bryant]

Chris Farley.

[Josh Clark]

That's right, Chris Farley. And so the narrative to this curse story takes a huge sudden turn when the next person up after Chris Farley is Sam Kinison.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yes, And Sam Kinison. They were actually. I mean, they were actually gonna make the movie. It was happening. And Sam Kinison kind of destroyed that because he wanted to. He wanted to be really heavily involved in the scriptery rights and the direction of the film. He wanted creative control. He battled with the studio I think there may have even been lawsuits going on. And he eventually got to the point where he was like, you know what? If I'm gonna. If you're not gonna give me creative control, I'll be in your movie and I'll suck. On purpose.

[Josh Clark]

On purpose. And they said, oh, yeah, we're gonna sue you. And he said, oh, right. And then he died in a car wreck. Yeah. Before anything could happen as a result. So I took for the moment, died with him again. Isn't that bizarre? It is the idea that those two things crossed over like that. That one. Obviously it's not a curse, but I think that it's pre pretty interesting at the very least.

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah, for sure.

[Josh Clark]

Well, if you guys want to know more about movie curses, just go start watching movies and ask people, is this one cursed? And then if they say no, go watch another one and ask about that. And then eventually someone will say, yes, this one's cursed. And then ask them the story behind it. In the meantime, since I said all that, it's time for listener mail.

[Chuck Bryant]

I'm going to call this just a very kind email from a kind Aussie.

[Josh Clark]

Nice.

[Chuck Bryant]

Hey, guys. Discovered your show a couple of months ago, and I reckon I have listened to two or three podcasts a day since then.

[Josh Clark]

Awesome.

[Chuck Bryant]

I absolutely love you guys. And to say that your show is addictive would be an understatement. Until very recently, I was a news junkie. I live in Melbourne, Australia, and would listen to Radio national at every opportunity. But since Brexit and the recent US election, listening to the news and current affairs and has become a health hazard for me. I also have two youngish children, 11 and 9, and having grown up in the shadow of the mushroom cloud myself, I don't want to subject my kids to the same fear. So finding your podcast has been a true joy. I love how enthusiastic and optimistic you both are about everything, and your curiosity is truly infectious.

[Josh Clark]

That is so nice, isn't it? Yeah.

[Chuck Bryant]

You are so gloriously accepting of different ideas and cultures. I've even adopted Chuck's. I don't want to use someone else's Yum. Which, by the way, Bridget, I did not make that up.

[Josh Clark]

No, that was another listener who's from my list.

[Chuck Bryant]

But we love to say it, for sure, and I'm glad you've adopted that. But I love the podcast so much, I've got my husband and kids into it as well. My husband is a radio ham. We listened to your episode on Ham Radio together. He was impressed with your efforts. Keep it up, guys, and thank you for all the joy and information you brought to my life. Cheers. That is from Bridget Foster in Melbourne.

[Josh Clark]

Cheers. With some Fosters.

[Chuck Bryant]

And I tell you what, Brigid, we're coming to Melbourne in September of next year for shows.

[Josh Clark]

Yep.

[Chuck Bryant]

And you write in with a friendly reminder and you and your family can get on the old guest list.

[Josh Clark]

How about that? Awesome, man. Chuck, you're the guy.

[Chuck Bryant]

You're the guy. They're your passes, too.

[Josh Clark]

All right, cool. Well, I'm just giving them out. Thanks a lot, Bridget. It was Bridget and family, right?

[Chuck Bryant]

Yeah.

[Josh Clark]

Bridget with a D. Brigid, thank you for writing in. And if you want to get in touch with us like Brigid did, you can send us an email to stuff [e-mail] Stuff youf Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.

[Chuck Bryant]

For more podcasts My Heart Radio, visit

[Josh Clark]

the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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