Wait, wait, so father alone it's the last episode of the month.

Yes, and we're finally talking of Paul Newman film about time, right, I guess so I haven't really talked about a lot of Paul Newman.

If any Paul Newman film's on this show, I don't think.

So.

You haven't done The Color of Money.

No, I haven't done this.

I think maybe we did this sting a long time ago.

At but Paul Newman is not an actor.

I necessarily gravitate.

Towards You saw a Road to Perdition?

Nope, because you haven't seen Quintet yet.

As soon as you do, you'll be a convert.

I have not seen road to Perdition.

I have not seen cool hand Luke even Wow.

You are woefully deficient in the Paul Newman area.

Have you fined his delicious sauces I have?

And salad dressings Sokker Rooney, Baby, Yeah.

That's uh.

Those are Those are high quality sauces brought you, brought to you by mister Paul Newman, who I believe, if memory serves, donated all proceeds to.

Charity other than the overhead costume.

Good Man.

That Paul Newman, damn right, what does money where his mouth was delicious popcorn?

Yeah, and his wife what no, joe Anne Woodward was a huge into charity and stuff and Bucky have a lot of good deeds.

So yeah, the two of them together, they are a powerhouse.

Well, I mean, can you imagine being married upon Newman?

We we good looking man, that is Joey and Whatwards?

So slouch either?

Yeah, man, let's star at it all.

We got the looks, we got the sauces, we got the acting, We've got everything.

And on this episode of the Culture Cast, what do we got?

We got Father.

Malone all the way from Midnight Viewing and Mike White all the way from the projection booth.

And we're talking about the final movie of Father Malone.

May looking at nineteen seventy Two's The Life and Times of Judge roy Bean, the final film in John Millius month.

Paul Newman is Judge roy Bean's the man that came from nowhere to become a legend.

Hold it, could you lower the de seize a little bit?

He's not in a picture.

Um.

This is the Life and Times of Judge roy Bean, featuring a gallery of guest stars and a series of vintage portrayals Jacqueline Bissett, Tab Hunter, John Houston, Stacy Keach, Roddy McDowell, Anthony Perkins, and Ava Gardner is Lily Langtree.

The Judge must have been quite a character.

Who are you Justice?

Your sing are hard, hame.

Sin and Sassyfastin they make a more finger inside.

Sweet as it can be hard over me.

The Life and Times of Judge roy Bean.

If this story ain't true, it's sure should have.

Been in sin.

So.

Film is directed by John Hustin, written by Houston.

I'm sure, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know.

Look around, Father Malone.

Look around.

He's not a native New Yorker.

You can tell from that great it's actually John Houston house Ton.

John Houston sounds like a klingon.

It's written by John Millius, produced by John Foreman, and it stars Paul Newman as the aforementioned Judge roy Bean, a quote real person unquote.

The real person was named Judge roy Bean.

However, the character in the movie and the real person are loosely.

There are a whole bunch of other character actors from the time in here we got tab Hunter, John Houston, Houston, Stacy Keats, shows up for a hot minute, Roddy McDowell, Anthony Perkins, Anthony Zerba's here for fuck's sake, Ned Beatty.

We'll talk about I'm sure a lot of them, but Father Malone, I'm gonna turn the floor over to you first.

Why oh why, we're talking the Life and times of Judge roy Bean.

It's an important movie in Milius's evolution in Hollywood.

It's the movie I think that got him noticed the most.

It's the script that sort of everyone was a buzz with, like, who is this Millius guy?

I mean, he had done a few scripts, little things here and there, and he'd gotten a little bit of a name for himself when he won the you know, he won an award for his short film is Animated Film.

But this was the one where everyone sort of sat up and took notice, and with good reason, because Mike was very kind enough to supply the screenplay for this Milius' screenplay, and you can see why everyone was a buzz with it.

He basically wrote it like a novel.

It's written in the past tense, so you're reading the script as action is happening, but it's all as if it's being told to you, and it's a really novel way to write a screenplay.

And I think you can only get away with this once, and I think he's the only one who could get away with it.

And now that trick has been done, and it is a hell of a read, honestly, Like rereading it here, I'd read it years years ago, but rereading it right before I watched the movie, you can get why he wrote it.

Millius being Millius sort of a fan of the imperious figure in the wilderness who sort of forges civilization, Like he's kind of obsessed with that character.

Little Conan in there for sure.

Yeah, absolutely, the resurrection of the character as well, I noticed, Yeah, totally.

And you know, you know, at this point he wanted just to do a Teddy Roosevelt movie, but Teddy Roosevelt isn't bloodthirsty enough for young Millius, and I think he at least understands that about himself, that he's not that guy to do that movie just yet.

But he settles for this sort of footnote character in the American Old West, Judge roy Bean, and kind of fashions him into what he exactly like King Ozrick of Samaria, you know, out there in the Old West, and it, like I said, it is a hell of a fucking read.

I had seen the movie years and years and years ago, and I was tickled by it.

This is without knowing Millius's connection.

Now, rewatching it with the Milius connection, I have a much much dimmer view of the of the film itself.

But that's why it was chosen, and I think I think it's one that gets overlooked when when people discuss Milius's.

Filmography.

So all those reasons, all right, Mike, kicking it to you, I would love to know more about the making of this film because I completely agree.

The script for this phenomenal so much fun to read.

I mean, reading it reminded me of like one of the first times I read a Shane Black script where you just exactly what I was thinking.

Yeah, the electricity and just the confidence of writing.

I mean, to read some screenwriters is a pleasure of reading a novelist and just in a different format, and I absolutely love it.

But then you come to the movie and it's just like, what's going on in this movie?

It is, it lurches, it stops and starts, It just kind of doesn't know where it's headed.

The end feels rushed, and then there's more to the end that you don't think is supposed to be the end.

And yeah, it just it was very perplexing, and there are things in here where I'm just like, oh my god, that's amazing, Like just the way that Anthony Perkins introduces himself in this movie, Oh my god, and that you find he's like the narrator kind of of this.

And again, Chris and I were just talking about narration and things like Casino and Goodfellas and this one having multiple narrators and then finally kind of settling on ned Baty.

I was like, Okay, that's cool.

But it was interesting how they kind of pass the baton through there, and especially that Anthony Perkins talks about his own death in there and how he sounds like he's up in heaven and Judge roy b must be in hell because he hasn't seen him yet.

I'm just like, oh my god, that's so great, and I was hoping that the entire movie would live up to that.

First like what fifteen minutes of this film, which are just like amazing to watch, really reminds me a lot of like a spaghetti western as far as the stranger coming into town, the bragging about the Wanda poster outside, the way that they flip him upside down and shake out all the gold and then tie him up and you know, time to the back of a horse and let the horse hang this guy.

And I'm just like, this is phenomenal.

The way that you know, Victoria Principle shows up as this angel and gives him this gun.

I'm like, this is so good.

And then the Perkins part and then the burials and all that, and then sometime, I mean, I think even too, like when he starts his law practice and ends up like hiring those marshals.

But somewhere after that it just seems to kind of lose its way.

But there were moments, I mean, even oh God, Stacy Keach and the death of Stacy Keach.

That was another moment where I was just like, fucking a like John Houston plus John Millius, what an amazing pair.

But I'm just like, what happened, John Houston.

It feels like you just kind of lost your plot.

It feels like this is suffering from when did Butch and Sundance come out?

Was that before this?

Three years before this?

A lot of Western suffered from Butch Cassidy itis after this, well.

The worst thing in the world to me, Like, I I love Butchercasting and Sundance Kid, but I will leave the theater when rain drops keep falling on my head start.

I can see with this movie having that song stuck smack dab in the middle of it.

That's the weakest part of this movie and just just was so cut wrenching to see that.

And I'm like, no, this is supposed to be reveling in violence again with like the Shane black stuff.

I'm just like, yes, violence, like bring it to me.

I want.

It's like this felt like a like a Walter Hill, Like, you know, Walter Hill would just like worship at the altar of John for this type of a movie, especially with these heroes, this WESTERNVILLI U and like, yeah, this is fantastic, and especially to the whole idea of like the turn of the century and seeing how fast everything is moving and really puts a point on that that the Old West as old as of like twenty years ago, and we're so not that far past that.

I'm like, all of these great elements and I saw all of those in the Millius, but I'm not seeing them in the Houston How about you, Chris, Sorry, I was I filibuster.

I apologize.

Oh that was great.

I think compared to the script, the movie is severely lacking.

And I think if you had not provided the script to us, Mike, I might have a different opinion on the movie.

But it's almost a shame that the script isn't adapted in the film the way that it should have been and could have been, because the movie feels so disjointed and it meanders at times, and there is a musical interlude that is completely unnecessary and serves no purpose, and the song's not even that good either.

There are parts of this movie that are fun.

There are parts of this movie that feel like a good idea that is then truncated and they don't do enough with it.

Like Stacy Keach is the movie for five minutes.

I could not abbreciated, fucking believe how little Stacy Keach is in this movie.

And then there are things in this movie that, I mean again, just kind of go on for a while, like you know, some of the some of the third act of the movie kind of just goes on for a little long and you know, this movie's two hours, so it definitely has some room to chop pieces out, and because it is so kind of vignette centric, you could almost get away with taking some things out because again, given that it's so vignette heavy, there are parts of this movie that don't really serve a purpose other than to just be an interesting or fun thing to do.

Yeah, I think this is I said, this isn't one that gets mentioned a lot, and is probably with good reason.

I think you should watch this as a completest, definitely for Milius to see where his head was at at that time.

But the problem, as you said, Mike is John Houston.

He's at the end of his career kind of you know, at least he's not hooked into the youth as he thinks he's trying to be with this movie.

This one feels like you said, a desperate grab at Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, when this is not that script at all.

There is this is not necessarily an elegaic view of the Old West, and Millius intended to just make this himself for no money in Spain to direct it.

And the problem is because he fucking had the showboat with the fucking screenplay the way he did and caused so much interest.

They basically gave him three hundred thousand dollars to go away, which anyone what nineteen seventy one three hundred thousand dollars it's think, you know, a million five or something at the for inflation.

So I can only imagine what this movie would have been had he made it for you know, for f one hundred thousand dollars in Spain, with you know a few actors like like he he had intended this script to go to James Coburn.

And oh I heard Lee Marvin.

Oh, Lee Marvin.

You're right it was Lee Marvin and and fucking Paul Newman like cofered the script and ran away with it and ended up in the movie.

And the main the main problem is John Houston's direction, but the other main problem, and it's just equal to it.

No offense to mister Newman.

He's terribly miscast here.

He's yeah, I could tell that, And I haven't even seen enough Paul Newman movies to know that he is really I'm not gonna say he's bad in this movie, but he's not good, Like he is not a charismatic lead the way this movie like suffers like almost like yearns for it.

Like I part at times in this movie, I'm like, why are we following this guy's story.

He's not at all a human being that I particularly care about, and I think that that is pre merely Paul Newman's characterization of him.

I agree.

I will take a little umbrage with the whole thing of this being the twilight time of John Houston's career because right before this he did Fat City, and one picture after this will do the man who would be king very very solid.

He still got You're right, Okay, I take that back.

Maybe he just did not understand this material.

I don't think he understood this material.

I'm not sure anybody understood this material other than John Millius Rank.

Yeah.

I mean also to the negative pile for mister Houston, he was involved very recently before this with that wretched Cassino Royale as one of the many directors and that.

Yeah, so anyway, I'm not here to debate about that, but yeah, I completely agree, especially having Paul Newman as one of the producers, probably was carrying a lot of weight.

The other thing that surprised me is that and This would have been a delight talk about another face would be I think Millius wanted more Oats in this role.

Can you imagine?

I mean, this is the Warren Oates of I mean, this is what right at the time of bringing the head of Alfred Alfredo Garcia.

I mean one of the best performances period, one of the best Warren Ohs performances period.

I mean, give me more of that.

Yeah, Warren Oates would have been the perfect guy for this, you know he would have.

The problem is that, however imperious, however bloodthirsty Jedge roy Bean has to be and it's completely undermined by the cuddly softness of Paul Newman.

He just seems like he's joking like, and that's him, but it's also the tone of the movie overall.

It just seems to be smirking the entire time.

And there's another one like this isn't the worst example of this, but there's a Kerk Douglas Western called there was a Crooked Man came out around the same time, which is it leans even further into isn't this a third the way we were back in the Old West?

And it's not Millius Isn't saying this is absurd, Millius is saying this is the way things have to be.

I love this period of American filmmaking where they it's like the Spaghetti Western cycle, as you know, it has taken hold, it is still going and will continue to go for a few years.

But that really gave a whole new life for me to American westerns.

And so it's almost like we're seeing our past reflected through this Italian crazy lens, back to our own past, you know, and here we are in the late sixties, early seventies and seeing things like I mean, we'll probably talk about old men make up later on, but like to see things like Little big Man, you know, like another person who was involved in the same production company, Dusn't Hoffman, was right there at one point with this first artist.

I don't think he's one of the four profiles that we see.

I think it's put he a stories and Newman, and I'm not sure who the other one is.

But it's just like, yeah, this was amazing that we had this little burst of stuff, like I'm thinking even I mean, you could say, oh, definitely say the Wild Bunch, you know, but then like thinking of like, you know, I used to always get this movie mixed up with Buffalo Bill and the Indians, and it's like, you know, that's McCabe and Missus Miller, you know, another like retro western.

And I just love this period of time where we're making these really thoughtful, interesting westerns.

Yeah.

Eastwood continues the trend with like Outlaw Josie Will.

Oh God, yes, yeah, I mean to bring his basic man with no name character back to the United States.

I mean even something in something silly, but I absolutely love it.

Two meals for Sister Sarah.

I mean, that's as close to an American spaghetti western as you're going to get.

I don't understand why this movie felt the need to be a comedy either, I guess is kind of the thing that strikes me as odd when I look at what this movie could have been and should have been and then decides to be.

Is kind of what it feels like almost in spite of what is going on.

You know, I went and read about the life of Judge roy Bean and none of it seemed particularly comedic.

Oh it was weird, though, See what kind of like a nut job, like thezy fucking nut Like he's a nut, like you wouldn't want to be friends with him, Like there are there are modern day analogus to him, like Shariff Joe Arpayo, like someone who was just weaponized in their belief that they can do no wrong in the eyes of the law.

And it's like, yo, dude, calm down.

Like yeah, in this environment, Uh yeah, that's very troublesome.

I did watch an episode of the pilot episode of the Judge roy Bean TV series from when was that like the late No, it's a fifty five, that's what it was.

And Edgar Buchanan, Uncle Joe from Petticoat Junction is the main gut or wait was he?

Or was he mister Hate No, he was a mister Haney.

That's a right.

Yeah, sorry, I'm getting my getting my green acres mixed in there too.

But I to see him and then at one point there's a bear hanging around his place, and I was just like, then I watched The Life and Times of Judge roy Bean.

I was like, Oh, okay, is this where the bear comes in?

And I'll be honest with you guys, and I feel really fucking stupid until I started doing my research for this episode.

I didn't know there was a Judge roy Bean.

I didn't know there was a Lily once A named Lily lang Tree.

I always thought that Grizzly Adams was a fictional character.

I didn't know there's a real dude.

So I'm just like, oh my God.

Like it's like as if you thought Annie Oakley was fake for all of your life and then you found out she's real, and I'm like, holy shit, I used to I grew up on Grizzly Adams.

I only I did Judge roy Bean was a real person.

Because it's six Flags over Texas, the original six Legs.

They have a roller coaster named Judge roy Scream.

What a legacy.

And you know what annoy that.

I guarantee you he caused many a scream in his lifetime.

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

I love the viciousness.

I mean I sometimes I am bloodthirsty.

I mean I love heroic bloodshed movies.

I love spaghetti westerns, and the bloodier the better when it comes to this, and I was loving the violence in this.

I especially loved after his wife dies after childbirth and then they bring the guy in who's been on a bender, the doctor and just the casual way that he starts beating the shit out of this guy, and then the very casual way of how he puts the rope around his neck, throws it up over the pole and just starts hoisting this guy up and just arguing with Roddy McDowell while he's not really arguing, just like and that's the strange thing about this character.

Sorry, I'm jumping all over the place the streets.

Thing about this characters there's so many times where they're like, Roy, you gotta do this, like you really have, Like when Roddy McDowell's like, you have to stop, and eventually he does stop, and I'm just like, Okay, that's weird because there's a few times where it's like you have to do this, you have to do this, so I think the best, and he will do it, and he will eventually like do right, And that's where I felt like that Houston was coming in, where it's like, no, no, I don't think this guy would ever stop or should ever stop.

But for me, the one that I loved the most was when it was all of his marshals coming to him complaining about the way that he called all of their wives horse, all of the horres that have been in the town are now offended by being called that, And I just love the way that he gives that apology to them, and that those are the times where I'm like, this is Newman firing on all cylinders.

This I like.

But to your point, Chris, there's way too much jokey jokey in here.

And I'm fine with like a little bit, especially like rye humor.

I mean, for me, a lot of like the spaghetti westerns.

I'm not talking Terence Hill and Bud Spencer, but like just regular regular you know, Django and some of these, you know, the Dollars Trilogy movies.

There's always a little bit of humor, and I like that.

It's just like a wry little thing.

I mean, especially like and the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.

I mean, I find the stuff that's going down between Eli Wallack and Clint Eastwood be fucking hilarious.

You know, Eli Wallack is amazing to me in that movie.

But it's like, yeah, this one is just like, maybe tune it down a little, bet, let's not constantly be winking at the camera.

Well, I think the scene that you just the scene that you just described, Mike blory, he has to apologize to the whores.

A scene like that is very funny reading it on the page, it's very very funny.

The problem is they read things like that and probably laughed out loud and thought, well, okay, this is a comedy.

Let's lean into that, and let's lean into the absurdity of this instead of letting the comedy comes.

Its played straight, and that's why it worked.

It even works on screen like that translated from the page to the screen.

Well, because it's straight.

Everything else seems like I said, it seems to be like a can't at angle and like, oh, let's go have a picnic with the bear.

Yeah, oh god, that scene.

Geez well, one thing I'll say, amazing bear acting.

Apparently Bruno who was gentle Ben.

I didn't realize that I was.

Again in my mind is blown.

I th a gentle Ben.

The bear was also gentle Ben, the actor.

The character was the actor, but no, Bruno was Ben.

And yeah, what amazing bear acting.

But at the same time, A little goes a long way.

Really didn't need to see the bear on the picnic and just Q rain drops keep falling on my head.

Oh my god, such such an ill advised sequence in the middle of this, like you know, look, the romance is in there, it's baked into the script.

Like the Mary Elena character is as developed is not.

I won't say it's any Milia's character.

That's not true, because you know, we'll eventually get Valeria, who is just probably his best female character.

But as far as this period of John Millis, that's the best you're gonna get.

Like the girl who just supports you and everything and then has your kid and dies.

Uh yeah, yeah, it's like, oh, we're gonna fringe this lady.

Three quarters of the way through.

This felt pretty much.

It ain't great.

But to be fair, that's you know, that's not why we're here, right, I mean we're here for one very obvious and specific thing, which is Paul Newman's performance, and you know, the the wacky escapades of Judge roy Bean, which you know, I want to I want to talk about something, the Stacy Keach of it all.

Why Why did he look like that?

What was the point?

Why?

What the fucking why can anyone explain to me why, in the middle of a movie that's inherently grounded in reality, all of a sudden we have a guy who's effectively an albino running around talking about eating a horse and smothering it and onions and eating onions out of the ground raw, Like what, you know what, show me that movie, the whole fucking movie, because I would have vibed with that movie the whole time.

But don't, like, show me something interesting and then go back to something less interesting and expect me to not go I want to see that thing again, please?

Yeah?

Can I just say in that scene in particular, like if you read the script, first of all, he's not an albino in the script, he's just a bad dude and uh.

And but he does everything as described, including you know, the killing the horse, telling him to cook it up till he's gonna eat it, and he pulls an onion out of the ground.

He's eating that, and then he pours a hot cup of coffee, like, you know, directly into it like he's so all of that's there, But then he keeps calling out Jed roy Bean and right behind him in the frame there's this wide open barn.

The whole time, I'm expecting just a puff of smoke to come out of the barn and him be blown apart.

Because that's how it's described in the script and it's right there, and they could.

Have done it.

No, but he, like Houston cuts to the windows slowly opening and Paul Newman coming out with the rifle and everything, like it's just like the joke was there.

Just take the joke.

Yeah, yeah, and it's all almost like he used that.

Then later when Paul Newman comes back as the what I thought was a ghost, and I was like, oh, no, I guess this is really the real guy when he revisits them.

I mean, it felt like the Spirit of the West coming back type of thing.

I don't know if you guys read the I'm sure you read the Wikipedia.

I just love all of the stuff that Milius talks about, how it was turned into what he called the Beverly Hills.

Western roy Bean is an obsessed man.

He's like Lawrence of Arabia, which I found to be a really fitting thing.

He sits out there in the desert and he's got this great vision of law and order and civilization, and he kills people and does anything in the name of progress.

I love these kind of people.

That's the kind of people who built this country.

I mean, that's such a Millius line.

Fucking yeah, yeah, I love it.

He just he goes on and I like, he goes to a picnic and sists on a teeter tutter and I'm like, yeah, yeah, like you're you're right on with all that stuff, and give me that version.

And this is so weird.

It's i mean, this is almost like a film mode where like, Okay, there's something hiding in here.

I mean some of these scenes like him with his outlaws and deputizing these outlaws and stuff, and just the way that they keep bringing in all of these people and the hangings and all that stuff.

I'm like, this is a great sequence, but it feels like it's a great sequence in a movie that's way better than the stuff that's around it.

Yeah.

What's funny is that the script doesn't is by its nature episodic, but it does not feel episodic, but you feel how episodic the film is, like here's a b It's full of blackout sketches exactly kind of.

What it feels like.

Yeah, honestly, And you know when when you have the best blackout sketch being you know, Stacy Keach wanting to eat a horse and chewing on onions and you have him die in the same scene you introduced him.

It's just like, what I mean, I don't really mind it.

I would like you I would like to see that movie more than this movie.

But you know, again, like that for me is one of these amazing highlights, you know, the Anthony Perkins thing, the thing with tab Hunter and the way that he's talking to us as a character, you know, like that he's contemplating his crimes.

They are taking me in for something I didn't do, but I guess I've done a lot of bad things.

And I'm almost like, oh my god, what if this whole movie's like this.

What if every single time somebody comes to town we hear an inner monologue like this, Like we have had Anthony Perkins, now we have tab Hunter.

I'm like, what's gonna happen with the next person?

This is gonna be so cool.

And it set me up.

I took a fall.

I was like a chump, you know, and I'm just like, oh no, Like these are really great ideas, and like I can just see like carrying through with this stuff, and it just feels like Houston's just missing the mark time.

And again, I'm like, was this just a money gig or something, or like was it the producer thing that maybe Newman was just like no, no, like cut that like we need to be funnier here kind of thing.

Yeah, I wonder.

I wonder what he took the project to begin with, other than like maybe this is a green light, we can just go do this right now.

True, Okay, I don't really know what this is, but okay, yeah, I mean this idea of like, man, you know, crazy people that just become obsessed with stuff.

I mean that is a Houston staple.

I mean Treasure of the Sierra Madre, the man who would be king, you know these movies where it's just like I have one purpose and I am doing that, I'm losing everything else.

Other than that, the way that he didn't Moby Dick, Yes, yes, exactly, Yes, the ultimate obsession and with this it's like, yeah, right, being is fucking crazy.

And the way that he twists stuff, the way that he constantly tries to like repeat what Anthony Perkins's Preacher character was saying, the way he just keeps changing that sermon every single time he has to read it.

I love the way that it's like, yo, what was it like laws the handmaiden of justice or something like, well, didn't you just say that justice is the I mean of the law works either way, you know, And I'm like almost expecting, like either of these guys are going to just keep going along with him and become more and more ealous and almost treats him like a Christ figure, or they're going to figure out that this guy's full of shit.

And I'm like, either way, I'm here for it.

I wasn't rarely here for the way that it ended up developing.

Well, you know, you can only these these these imperious folks can only last for so long and then civilization has got to take over, sorry buddy, exactly.

And that's the thing that I love is that quick you know, that montage with ned Baby narrating and just talking about how quick progress goes, and the way that the town goes from the lawless Old West to the lawless you know, mob run town.

It's that that's really really nice.

I you know, I almost find what's going on with the secondary characters because again, there's such recognizable character actors I find them to be.

I mean, we've already talked about new and being miscast other than the fact that I think Newman has the best interactions of the movie with the bear actor that he's opposite.

I really like the supporting cast in the movie, and I think that they kind of carry what is a you know, miscasting of Paul Newman over the finish line, because they're all so great in their own right.

You know.

Ned Baty is the sort of the facto narrator at a certain point in the film, playing Krits, and you know, he's as important as anybody in this movie.

He ends up raising Bean's daughter for christ sake.

And now, considering the miscasting of Paul Newman, how about ned Beatty just swapped into the role of Judge Roy Bean.

Could have worked there?

Oh fuck yeah?

Yeah.

Ned Beaty looks the most natural with that older man makeup and especially that big, old, like amish looking beard that he's got.

I'm just like, this suits you, and you just forget how delightful he was to watch and to listen to.

His voice just has this honey quality to it.

I mean, I was trying to impersonate John Houston before this recording started, and I'm like, when I saw that John Houston was in this movie, I was like, yeah, fucking ay.

This is gonna be fantastic.

I'm so happy.

I don't even know if it was him on screen.

It almost sounded like everything was eighty yard, you know, just hit the way when he's like using the shovel and stuff.

I'm like, I don't think that that is the same person talking.

That's definitely Houston's voice though, But yeah, I don't know where I was going with Oh.

I was going to say, as far as the character actors, I love Matt Clark and I'm always happy to see Matt Clark show up in here or in anything.

But he's one of those gangster guys and he is Marshals and he is fantastic.

I was gonna say he's in Bookeroo Bonzi, and.

I didn't recognize Richard Farnsworth.

I really only know Richard Farnsworth from when he was an old man.

I mean he That was the thing though, was like, this guy is eighty years old and he's been in movies since he was like ten something, you know, like the original Cowboy, and rarely he's one of those Marshals too.

And I'm like, no, if he's not running a lawnmower or trying to get an author out of trouble from a rabid fan.

I don't necessarily recognize him.

I only can really think of him in the straight story.

That's what I That's what I think of and I think of him.

He's so good in that.

He's good here too.

Yeah, but yeah he I mean he was also in Outlawed.

Josie Whales talking about that whole revision this Western stuff so one of the best, you know, I love that interpretation of that ghostly figure of revenge.

Just how like even in what's the one where he paints the town red?

Where Clint Easwood paints the town red, that's Josie Willis.

No, No, this is the other one where it's the towel.

Uh what is that?

Somebody look it up?

Get your wagon that one?

No hate your wagon, going to paint your wagon.

I'm glad you know what I'm talking about.

Yeah, Uh that is High Planes Drifter.

So in High Planes Drifter, that whole thing of like the character coming back from the dead and everything.

I mean, it's just yeah, I was, I like the whole ghostly thing that High Planes Drifters started, and it feels like it carries through with Outlaw Josie Wales.

I don't know if you can say this guy was dead, but it just feels like he's a force of nature, and I think that comes with the death part of it.

And like I said, I was thinking that when roy Bean comes back, that he was just I honestly thought when they showed him or just showed a silhouette, I was like, well, that's probably actually not Judge roy Bean, that's probably somebody else.

But it's going to give them the inspiration and they're going to do a little ww j RB you know thing and just be like, Okay, well let's burn down the fucking town.

But that ending so different from that Milius script again, and I don't know.

I don't know if the Milius ending would have worked, though I'm curious what you guys think.

Well, I mean, I'm curious to know what Millius would have done overall.

So I think his ending might have fit.

In with the movie he was making, which was a spaghetti western revisionist take on the American West.

So yeah, I don't know.

The ending to me was just as unsatisfying as everything that had come before.

Not everything, obviously, but you know, I was.

Gonna say this is now two episodes in a row where Millius's endings have been fluxed with by somebody else.

Well, yeah, Magnum Forest they completely rewrote into a big action eything.

Well and also Apocalypse now as well.

Well, they go everything, they keep rewriting them.

We can only everything, We can only trust Conan the Barbarian and Dylinger.

And the climax of Conea the Barbarian is, you know, it's a big action set piece.

So he burns down everything.

Yeah, it burns down the Stone Temple, which I wondered how that worked, but me too.

But you know what, it's the fucking sheer power of Conan's fury.

Oh yeah, exactly.

And you know what that there is a big action set piece, no question, but the end of that movie is really just between him and him in false done.

That's right, Yeah, after he cuts his heat off.

I mean that's the best part.

Speaking of incredible scores, like Conan had this Maurice jar score pretty interesting at most of the time.

There are times where I was like, oh, that's clunky, But for the most part, especially in the beginning, like I was saying, I'm so happy with the beginning with the you know, the way when he walks into that saloon and you get the creaky music and just it's very it's like a horror film at that point, and then it shifts so comedy.

I mean, the stuff with Roddy McDowell for the most part is just insufferable.

And I love Roddy McDowell, but that character just insufferable.

And terrible character.

And then a terrible attempting to heighten the humor here with comedy kind of cues musically unfortunately, because like you said, the rest of it's interesting, the rest of it's fun, and then once it starts, Mickey mousing, it's just like, please stop.

Well and you know, for as you know, Mike, when we've talked about Roddy McDowell recently with Colombo, because he was on what two episodes of Colombo that we've seen, just.

The one I think so far.

Is one they got to call it Cyumbo Colombo.

Uh, you know, we saw him recently in that and he was he was fine, not even though the episode was kind of a climax of that episode's a bit much I here in this, I mean, in this, in this movie, I don't like Roddy McDowell at all, his role is just to completely waste it.

Well, you don't like him or his performance, you don't like the character because the character's a scumbag who's come to undermine our lead.

Yeah, but it's not that it's like it's that I don't know the performance.

Just he doesn't seem like a force of nature enough to hang with Judge roy Bean.

And you kind of have to be given where that character is kind of being painted in this movie.

And how again, how firmly he's being characterized, I feel like as a I mean obviously, I mean like he's the lead of the movie, so he's being characterized pretty strongly.

But I just don't feel like, I don't know, Roddy McDowell ends up being the villain of the movie.

Really, you know, talk about recasting again, how about him and Anthony Perkins switch.

Rolls, Yeah, like you definitely, Yeah, that's what I mean.

Like Roddy McDowell just there are better actors in this movie who could have done his role and actually made it somewhat intimidating, somewhat.

I mean again, like there's no universe where I believe that Roddy McDowell's character is an actual threat to Judge roy Bean, and that's.

I don't know why it doesn't just string him up right exactly.

I yeah, it's it just doesn't.

I don't know.

That's one of the things where it's like, I again, because of the vignette nature of the movie, does the movie need a villain per se?

And after a while I kind of forgot that he was even there as a presence, right, I thought, really after the incident with the bear, like maybe things are good now, and it just feels like he drops out of the story for a while, and then when he comes back, you're like, oh wait, and it's that whole like it's his lowest moment, right, Rory Bean's lowest moment in the screenplay where it's he got taken for a ride, didn't get to meet the Lily lang Tree, you know, gets robbed by Anthony Zerbi in this Confederate and then comes back and McDowell was like, Oh, your men aren't your men anymore.

They're my men now.

They elected me mayor.

And I was like, okay, yeah, this is pretty awful.

But yeah, again to your point, Chris, I was just like, it doesn't feel like he's a threat.

He just feels like a net and it feels like we're just waiting the whole movie for him to get smacked, and he doesn't really get smacked, and it's not really a very even satisfying finale for him.

Oh not at all, at least not in my mind.

Yeah, and that might still be owing to the episodic nature of things were true.

You know, we're only.

Getting a little sligh of everybody, and we forget all about everything.

You know, if the if the guy who had shot up the Lily Langtree poster had come back from the dead at the end, I would have been like, who is that guy?

Right?

It would have been interesting.

Now I'm here to get my revenge.

Jerge.

I like him a lot.

He's pretty great.

Is great?

I you know, I don't know.

I think, you know, we keep mentioning revisionist Western and I think if this movie was more of that, I would have enjoyed it more.

I mean, it's coming out at a time where we're getting filmmakers pushing the envelope and really making you know, taking the original genre style films and doing something interesting with them.

And again, the script knows that there's an interesting movie at the center of this.

It's just I don't think that everybody involved could get out of their way long enough to just accept Millius's script, which I mean again, his script is so like again, I don't know what anyone else was reading, because if the three of us were making this movie would be like, we're just gonna adapt the script, Like why do anything else the movie?

Like the movies, Like direction is so well like choreographed in the script.

Why do you feel it necessary to do something different?

I think it's funny that if you read this.

I actually, when I rewatched the movie, I had the script open and just sort of read along, and it's funny.

The thing that's so great about the script is it is written like a novel, so a lot of the descriptions he got ended up as dialogue in the final movie.

I noticed, whoever did the rewrite, I think it was John Houston himself, ended up taking a lot of millions of descriptions and putting it into the mouths of characters.

That's pretty smart, you know, I mean, And that's one thing that Houston knew how to do.

I mean, is that adaptation in quotes of the Maltis Falcon where He's just like just took everything that's there, you know, basically put the end at the end, you know.

But yeah, he knows how to adapt.

And I just I wish he I wish that this was better.

I wish nobody told him it was a comedy.

Yeah, I don't.

I just don't understand why it needs what persuaded them, what drove them to add the comedic bits to the movie.

I just don't understand what was the point of adding comedic bits to this movie.

Paul Newman's not necessarily a comedic actor.

He can do it well.

He can do it well, but I wouldn't say, like, oh, when I think of Paul Newman, I think of him as a comedic actor.

Yeah.

No, but you look at him for a bit of lightness obviously.

I mean, even then, the movie doesn't succeed in that regard, Like it doesn't go far enough in the direction.

It's like it doesn't commit to the bit in any direction.

Frankly, maybe Houston is just looking at the script and then looking at Paul Newman and going, I guess we'll just do it as a flat out comedy because it's not gonna work as this bloodthirsty fella out being crazy in the old List.

But it totally could have.

Oh yeah, it should have.

Yeah, shouldn't this have just been Conan in the wild West?

Yeah, exactly what it should have been.

We should be debating like the character of Jed roy Bean for an hour here and not why this failed as a film, right, Well, if.

We had watched if we had watched Conan, that's probably well we would have been talking because this movie just doesn't live up to that movies.

I don't know, this doesn't live up to it.

It doesn't live up to anything.

Frankly, well no, but you know, it's as much as this is a failure, it's like you all said, we keep Millius kept coming here to this particular well over and over again.

Apocalypse Now is a perfect example with Kurtz.

Oh yeah, well I know that who is it?

I think it's bad.

Bob makes a reference to Liveryton Johnson and that's the same Jeremiah Johnson from one of Millius's other screenplays, and I'm just like, Okay, I guess.

I mean, I've seen the meme so many times.

I still don't believe that it's Herbert Redford underneath that it still looks like Zach Glifanakus to me.

But yeah, I guess I now need to see this movie, so I'll check it out.

And that was the same year too, I think.

So he was Jailias was on fire Man.

It was yeah, holy shit, all.

The other film brats looking up to him.

Come on, John, hook me up man over the line.

I yeah, I think I'm repeating myself with this whole idea of like, I would really like to see more of Millius's version.

This was an interesting film for me.

I'm glad that I finally got a chance to see it because it had been something I saw, especially at the video store, for years and never checked out.

So I'm glad that I had this opportunity.

And I'm really glad to talk with you all, and especially to kind of get this fever back for Millius because he is one of the classics, man, one of the greats.

I just love what you did for so long.

And yeah, this this lit a fire for me to say, let's dive into Milius again.

Yay, that's what the month was all about.

Uh yeah, I you know this is this isn't a great movie.

I'm not going to recommend anyone run out and see it.

But I do recommend you read this screenplay if you get your hands on it.

It's out there.

It's really really good, and it's it's shows you just how innovative and fun he was.

He mentioned Shane Black at the beginning of this.

One of my favorite Shane Black descriptions was he was describing a mansion in Beverly Hills, the kind of mansion I'm going to buy when I sell this screenplay.

And that's what this felt like.

This felt like like one hundred and twenty pages of that.

So definitely reads this screen Victory lap Yes, yeah, man.

So it's indulgent and young and just brimming with ideas.

As a film, it doesn't deliver on any of those.

Unfortunately, it has a few bright moments.

We've mentioned them.

Mainly it's Stacy Keach.

That's what I take away from this movie every time is Stacy Keach as a fucking l b ando crazy man.

And he brought that, you know, he brought the albino part.

Yes so, but yeah, I mean, look, this is an interesting snapshow of where Millius his head was at and where he would this theme that he would continue to work on for his entire career.

Yeah, I'm in agreement.

You know, I don't think it's my favorite movie of the month.

I think I still kind of gravitate back towards two Apocalypse Now.

But he has really Millius really has a well of things that he goes to.

But I think he does it really well.

And that's that's not a bad thing, you know, having a well to go to, but you're really confident at nailing that thing that you do.

I don't know, I mean, Millius just when you watch his movies, you know what you're gonna get, and that's not a bad thing.

So, you know, I think to your point, Father Malone, Stacy Keach is like the best part of this movie.

That and the Bear actor.

But yeah, you know, I wanted more from this movie.

It didn't deliver in a lot of ways, but there were some parts that were fun enough.

So I I'm glad Father Well and we got to watch the Millius movies this month.

Yeah, it was.

It was a lot of fun.

You know, getting to revisit Apocalypse Now is pretty It's pretty great as well.

So so until the next episode of the Culture Cast, where can people find you?

And the things that you work on Mike White.

Well, you can find everything that I do over at weirdoingamedia dot com.

What the exception one thing which is called Ranking on Bond, which is available through christ Andmize individual patreons which are patreon dot com slash Rejection Booth and patreon dot com slash culture Cast, and if you sign up at the ten dollars and above level you get to hear ranking on Bond.

And we're going to have mister Father Malone coming back to talk to us, I think next month when we record which should be out in just a few months here for people to hear.

And yeah, always excited to talk Bond with y'all.

How about you, fatherm.

Alone find me.

We're at Midnight Viewing where these two fellows are frequent co hosts, and we were also running a show called Fusco Fest where HP and I are looking at the works of John Fusco.

Right now, we are currently at Thunderheart.

Next up is Lockmass, so check that out.

Oh.

Also, this is a little premature, it won't it't happen until October.

But I'm also co hosting another show over at a Year in Horror, Paul Waller's show year in horror.

I'm going to be doing a spinoff show over there called The Little Old Lady Got Mutilated Late last night and is a show about werewolves.

Have it about you, Chris, The.

Hell of a title for a show.

As for me, you can find me at Winningway Media dot com or this show and all the other shows I work on can be found Like rate and review this show wherever you get it, more than likely on iTunes.

If you don't get it on iTunes, go like rate and review it on iTunes because that's where interacting with the show helps the most.

Father the Moon, thank you so much for programming the month.

It's been fun.

Oh my pleasure.

Anything anything I can do to spread the gospel of John Millius.

Yeah, no shit.

And Mike, thank you for joining us as well.

This is This was a fun episode, a brisk, breezy episode, but a fun one at that, And I'm glad we finally got to watch a movie that some of us clearly had wanted to watch for a while, which is, you know, a rarity in a lot of ways doing this so and as always, will catch you on the next episode.

The fatt