In my younger, in more vulnerable years, my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.

Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, he told me, just remember that you host the Junk Food Cinema podcast.

In consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all my judgments.

All right, This is Dick Miller.

If you're listening to Junk Food Cinema, who are these guys?

Welcome old sports and prepare to get your east eggs scrambled by Junk Food Cinema, brought to you by doctor tj Eckelberg dot com, dot gam dot com dot Maybe drive your own damn cars.

This is the weekly Culton Exploitation filmcast.

So good it just has to be fattening and definitely the podcast that represents everything for which you have an unaffective scorn that will turn out alright in the end.

I am your host, Brian Salisbury, and this week Cargill is out scouting real estate in the Valley of Ashes and cannot attend this particular party, so in his stead for this very special episode, I am paralyzed with happiness to welcome back to the show.

My mother from another mother who is indeed by actual mother.

It's Mama junk Food.

Everyone, Hi, everybody, So good to be here again.

How are things in West Egg?

It's too cold there, so I retreated to Florida.

So I'm in my Florida space.

So South Egg, Yeah, I'm in the South Frida Egg.

That's the South Frida Egg.

Is exactly where I would want to be.

And if this podcast is where you want to be, you can listen to eleven goddamn eleven years of this horseshit on your favorite podcast.

You can follow us on social media.

And if you really like the show.

I mean you really like the show, I mean you.

Like it as much as I really want a Friday Egg right now, you can go to Patreon dot com slash junk Fit Cinema financially support the show.

We greatly appreciate it.

I mentioned that this is a special episode, and it's special and it's personal for a number of reasons.

Back in September, we lost Robert Redford, one of the greatest actors of all time, and I feel like I can say that without any hint of hyperbole.

And what I've always loved about Robert Redford is that his his name is synonymous with both handsomeness and acting talent.

He was somehow a quiet paradigm of both.

You just say the word Redford and people either know that you're talking about an absolutely devastatingly handsome leading man and also a legitimately gifted artist in the field of acting.

And in addition to appearing in foundational American cinema like The Sting, Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid, All the President's Men, Three Days of the Condor, and The Natural, he also proved to be a phenomenal director with films like Ordinary People, his directorial debut, for which he won Best Director at the Academy Awards, A River Runs Through It, and Quiz Show.

But Redford also championed environmental conservation, gave to charity, and did more for the advancement of independent film than arguably any other person when he created the Sundance Film Festival, which became the country's largest festival for independent films.

He also founded the Sundance Institute, Sundance Cinemas, Sundance Catalog, and the Sundance Chair, all in and around Park City, thirty miles north of the Sundance Ski area.

That he purchased with the money he made from Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.

Now, while we've covered Robert Redford films on this podcast, things like Spy Games, Sneakers, Captain America, The Winter Soldier, we knew a legend such as his would necessitate further retrospection and celebration.

And while we compiled a list of outstanding Redford movies to cover, one title leapt out at me for not only his performance but the movie's significant personal meaning.

Guys, I've never been what you might call an avid reader.

Point of fact, when comparing my reading habits to my viewing habits, one would be not totally out of bounds to refer to me as, say, a knuckle dragging illiterate.

But few of the few books that I was forced to read in school less than a handful made an impact that reverberates into my adulthood.

However, one that definitely sent those shockwaves was f.

Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

This book also happened to be a favorite of my fathers, and he also deeply loved the nineteen seventy four film adaptation of the Great Gatsby.

The world was spinning faster than and shining brighter.

It kingled with excitement, and when.

All of life was a fantasy, theirs was the richest fantasy of awe.

Robert Redford is Gatsby, Me and Pharaoh is Daisy in the.

Great love Story of our time, The Great Gatsby rated PG.

Also A massive fan of the film and a fan of my dad's is my mother.

So I could think of no better tribute to Robert Redford than to kick off a mini series on his work with The Great Gatsby.

And I could think of no better tribute to Dad than to have you mom on to discuss it with me.

So thank you for being here.

Sure, I love it.

I love the movie.

Your dad and I love to watch it.

And I don't even know how many times we watched it, but I do know your dad had a lot of the script memorized and would say that, you know whatever the actor was saying at the same time he did.

But the quote that you started off with was one of the two favorites from that book, and the other one was so we beat on votes against the current, born back ceaselessly into the past.

He absolutely loved that quote.

So I thought it was pretty telling that you've led off with the other one that he loved.

It's one of the only it's the only book.

I'll be real it's the only book in my life that I have the opening and ending line memorized.

And it's probably because of the quote along screenings that we had in our living room.

I remember, yes, watching this movie with the two of you.

I also remember, Mom, I don't know if you remember this, that we were all very excited for that TV movie adaptation that came out in two thousand with Paul Rudd, emiros Orvino, Yes, and the bad guy from Die Another Day played Gatsby, which is fitting because there's a bond girl in the adaptation we're talking about today.

So full circle, okay, Okay, I guess I didn't realize that.

So your dad probably mentioned it, but he mentioned so many connections with this movie and and we had so many conversations about where f Scott Fitzgerald got his inspiration from for the book, because your dad always thought it was when he and Zelda lived in Connecticut, because you or your dad spent a lot of time in Connecticut when he was a kid, and at you did too, and as he got older, we went there every summer.

But there's a lot of people who feel like it was Fitzgerald's time in Long Island, which I think that was like twenty two.

I think he was in Connecticut nineteen twenty and then he was in Long Island nineteen twenty two, so he he kind of experienced both sides of the Long Island Sound.

But that place where he stayed in Connecticut was in Westport, which was about an hour from your great ground mother's summer cottage, and your dad would go over there and you could see across the sound.

Now it's a big, a massive, you know, body of water when you look at it from that aspect, But he said he felt like that's where he got the inspiration, and he Enselda rented a house and they threw a lot of parties and they were blowing through a lot of money, and he felt like that's where it was.

So I just thought that was interesting that your dad had made a connection to, you know, the area of Connecticut that his grandmother was from, and his father, you know, spent a lot of time, and he spent a lot of time, so I think that was another thing that connected him to the book, and the movie was the setting.

So and I don't know if you remember, but where they filmed it.

A lot of it was filmed in Newport, Rhode Island, right, And I don't know if you remember how much how many times we visited Newport and how many of those mansions we went through, and your dad would tell us which room of the mansion, which scene of the movie was shot in.

So he had all these different mansions, like, oh, this is the Breakers, which was a Vanderbilt mansion.

As the kitchen that they used in the scene with he and Daisy, you know, when they were kind of spinny hanging out in the kitchen, it was at the Breakers.

And then when they were when they were finishistically looking at those cake pans, like that's one of the stranger scenes in this movie.

Like so much of this movie is, you know, showcasing the opulence of wealth in the nineteen twenties and how people live so lavishly, and and that that's and everything else in that movie, like the way that it's framed, the way that it's shot totally makes sense to that that theme.

The scene in the kitchen where she's just like running her hands over all those ice copper cake pans.

I'm like, I don't.

I don't know that that communicates as much wealth as the other things they've been doing, but sure, why not.

Yeah, it was.

I think there was a lot of honestly visual interpretation of what they were doing, which was, you know, not being truthful and honest, and so there's a lot of things that I think it was just maybe representative of the bad things they were doing.

So she was over emphasizing touching those peans, and I don't know if it was supposed to be central or it was a little odd.

That was a little odd part of the movie.

But I do remember the trips to those mansions, mom, because it's the only reason I know that Mark Twain's next door neighbor was Harriet beecher Stowe to this day, I remember that because we went to both of those mansions.

Yeah, so that was in Hertford, Connecticut, where Harriet beecher Stowe in Mark Twain's homes were.

We toured a lot of houses.

We went to Louise to a Alcott's house, you know, we just went to there's a lot of historic homes that you can tour on the East Coast, so we spent a lot of time there, but I think we went to Newport maybe half a dozen times, and there's I don't know seven or eight of those big mansions that are owned by the Newport Historical Society, and they give tours of them, and your dad really loved to go through, but he would pick out different spots, like the front of Gatsby's house I believe was Rose Cliff, which was another mansion.

I think that might have been the Astors that own that one.

But the Breakers and the Marble House were both used extensively, and both of those were Anderson Cooper's ancestors, the Vanderbilt.

So it just was a very fascinating place to be and it just kind of made me wonder how in the world they got those mansions as filming locations and what kind of cost it was to make the adaptations to them to make it fit the storyline, because those were built about the turn of the twentieth century, so it was several years before the Great Guest happened in the twenties that they were just humongous, opulent homes, which is what they were trying to reflect at that time, you know, in West Egg.

Yeah, and it's it's coming to me as well that dad was also a big fan of Ernest Hemingway.

And Ernest Timmingway and f Scott Fitzgerald were part of that what they called the Lost generation of artists post World War One that had, you know, found a lot of cynicism into the world, but spent most of their time, you know, in frivolity, almost as an escape from their own cynicism, and you know, created a lot of really impressive art and literature.

And it's it's crazy now that I'm thinking about it.

The only other book that I read in high school that has really stuck with me, you know, besides something like Fahrenheit four fifty one, is The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway.

So now I'm starting to wonder if these books were actually assigned to me in school, or if I was just reading them because Dad liked them.

Yeah, he has all of those books, you know, he has a collection of them, and I have read a couple of them since he passed away, just trying to part of it.

It always astounded me because they are just most of them are just tragic love stories, tragic and unlike your dad had.

I think a good, happy life and you know, a lot of love surrounding him.

And I don't know why he was so fascinated by these you know, tragic love stories, But when you think about the authors, they just just did a great job and their writing was so easy to get lost in, and you know read he read those books so fast and reread them several times.

So yeah, Ernest Hemingway was his other favorite author, and he had a geographical geographical connection to Himingway too, because he spent a lot of time in Michigan, where your dad was born, and he loved Michigan and Key West, Florida, which was another favorite place of your dad.

So your dad connected to places as well as stories and movies.

So I thought he had a cool, kind of all encompassing interest in things that he really liked well.

And I also think, and I put this together while watching The Great Gatsby again for this recording, is that in both this particular movie version of The Great Gatsby and In the Sun Also Rises, one of the things dad loved to do more than anything was people watch.

And I feel like in both of those stories, the main character is a bit of an outsider who is literally on the outside looking in a lot of times, like in the Sun also Rises, the protagonist is somebody who just goes to cafes and bullfights and you know, literally just spends time meeting different people.

And then if you watch this film iteration of The Great Gatsby, Sam Waterson is Nick.

At one point, it's just sitting on his porch watching the goings on of the crazy parties at Gatsby's, And I feel like Dad would have identified with that so hard, Like I'm just gonna make my food and sit on my porch and watch these lunatics run around, you know, next door to me, like the people watch aspect to sort of like you know, outside looking in and just enjoying the experience of taking in the surroundings, Like that was very much something Dad was into.

So I kind of understand it from that perspective.

But The Great Gatsby is also a deeply cynical book, Like it's very much a critique of, you know, the lost generation of America post World War One.

It's it's the reason that the story is told from the perspective of Nick, who is neither old money nor new money.

He's a middle class kid from the Midwest.

You know, he is the audience.

He is in a lot of ways f Scott Fitzgerald as well.

And you know, he's he has the most in common with Gatsby in terms of their upbringing.

But Nick is content with who he is, whereas Gatsby is trying to rewrite his entire history to remake himself into something that he is not.

And you know, the book is also about sort of the shallowness of wealth and the danger of the American dream, as you know, the antithesist of the noblest pursuit, which is love, and how literally the American dream can interfere with that basic of human emotion.

I mean, even a self made man, which is somewhat admirable at his Gatsby, he's able to create his own identity.

He can't shake his obsession with the girl who tossed him aside because he was poor.

So he's literally like living out this revenge fantasy.

Almost.

It's not even so much about being in love with Daisy and getting Daisy back as it is proving to her that he's worth more than she thought, and.

He's worthy, he's worthy of her.

That's he's trying to kind of prove his self worth.

It's obviously was a very difficult thing for him to go through when he came back and she didn't wait for him, and he brings that up, you know, and they discussed it and it just devastated him.

And obviously he has spent years building wealth and planning this very incident where he he gets across the sound from her and he wants her to notice the light on the dock.

I mean, the whole thing is very calculated.

And he brings Nick into the story because I don't from what I understand from the book and the movie, he doesn't realize that Nick is related to her, and then when he finally does, then that's when Nick gets involved in the story.

So it wasn't he was his neighbor and he rented the house next door.

But it was just very interesting to me how kind of built that relationship and Gatsby took advantage of him he did.

I think he ends up feeling like he's a friend, but initially he was just using him to get to Daisy.

So yeah, I Gatsby wasn't necessarily a warm, fuzzy, great guy, but I think that you fall in love with the couple and then you kind of figure out who she really is.

So it's it's just a very flex storyline.

But I feel like you're right the people watching aspect of it.

It's at more of the observations because if you watch Gatsby, he observes her with her husband Tom, and he observes her with her daughter, which he didn't know she had a child.

And I think there's a lot of maybe almost voyeurism, especially on Nick's part, just kind of watching things going on around him.

But he does remind me a lot of your dad Nick does, because he was he kind of reserved saying anything until he had something that meaningful to say that was relevant.

So he didn't just talk, you know, he was very much a thoughtful listener, and when he talked, it was thoughtful.

And I feel like that was a big part of the character of Nick, is that he was kind of in awe of Gatsby, but he also noticed his flaws and you know, didn't understand a lot of what he was doing.

So it's a very interesting way that they build the characters in that movie.

But I did recently watch there was a twenty twenty special episode that's I think it's playing right now in Hulu, and it was Robert Redsford The Life and Legacy of an American Icon, and that was so good at kind of explaining Robert Redford up to that point and kind of how his career has started, you know, in the theater.

And then he got the witch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid role in film and that really kind of catapulted him.

But he did do I love the movie Barefoot in the Park that he did with Jane Fonda as well, and that was something he did on Broadway and then ended up being cast in the movie opposite her.

So he played a lot of complex characters that were, you know, pretty interesting and entertaining.

But I feel like in nineteen seventy four he was like, I don't know, late thirties and me and Farah was about ten years younger.

And in fact, I don't know if you knew this, but your dad and I were watching and he goes that me and Pharaoh kind of looked pregnant in that scene, and she was pregnant yep when they were filming that movie.

So it's just kind of interesting that, you know, she wore those little nineteen twenties dresses you know, and they weren't really meant to hide a lot of you know, they weren't real bulky or anything.

So it was interesting that she had to film that movie when she was pregnant and was wearing nineteen twenties attire.

So yeah, I think definitely one thing I did not inherit from Dad was not speaking until you have something meaningful to say.

That's really not me.

You got that from me.

I will just I will just talk off the dome, whether it's a good idea or not.

And I think eleven years worth of this podcast will service people's exhibit a to that.

But I also just wanted to circle back to the idea of self worth and Gatsby trying to prove his self worth, and I think the most bitingly, the most biting condemnation of his own time is the fact that Gatsby is a character who, because of Daisy and because of the way that she threw him over, now equates self worth with net worth, which is, like I think, the ultimate indictment of the time in which he's living in.

But much like the way that Gatsby appears in the movie We're going to wait to talk more about Robert Redford as we get further into this episode, because he doesn't actually speak a line of dialogue in this film for thirty five minutes, so even though he's the titular character.

So before we get into that, I just want to do a real quick for anyone who didn't go to eleventh grade and have to read this book.

This is a historical drama set in nineteen twenty five, no in nineteen twenty two.

It was published in nineteen twenty five.

Is set in nineteen twenty two in the Long Island Sound, and it involves a character by the name of Nick Carraway, who's sort of our protagonist, who comes to live in this little cottage on the less fashionable end of the Island Sound and he moves in next to this enigmatic tycoon named Jay Gatsby.

But Nick is is moving in there to be closer to a cousin of his name, Daisy.

Daisy is married to a man named Tom.

They're both extremely wealthy, both come from old money inherited wealth, and Nick also meets a friend of Daisy's named Jordan, who is a professional golfer, And it's just sort of about all of the relationships and we find out, you know, through the course of the story, that Gatsby used to have a relationship with Daisy and he is holding on he's literally carrying a torch for her, not so much carrying a torch as he is looking at a green light for her.

We'll get into all of that, but it's just about about these relationships and how, you know, they come together again and and the the perils of their their their love and et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

That's that's the basic setup of the movie.

But I want to talk about how much more this movie means to me, you know, since I was a kid, because you know, getting older and becoming sort of somebody who ravenously consumes Hollywood history, I now know that The Great Gatsby was a Robert Evans project.

Baby, that's right.

Robert Evans, who was the head of Paramount from basically the mid sixties all the way up until pretty much the nineties, off and on, and you know, produced movies like Rosemary's Baby and Love Story and The Godfather and etc.

Etc.

Etc.

And if you haven't read or seen the documentary The Kid Stays in the Picture, highly recommend it that dude is insane.

Excuse me was insane, and his stories are incredible.

And I also recommend the Paramount plus mini series The Offer about the making of The Godfather, in which Matthew Good plays Robert Evans to perfection.

Incredible, incredible.

But this was a project he set up.

He bought the rights to the book in nineteen seventy one because he wanted his wife Ali McGraw to play Daisy, but she was committed to do this Sam Peckinpah movie called The Getaway, So they were gonna wait.

They're gonna wait till they were done with The Getaway to do the to do The Great Gatsby with Ali McGraw playing Daisy.

In the meantime, Unfortunately, Ali McGraw had an affair with her Getaway co star Steve McQueen.

They got divorced, so now he's got no leading lady for this movie, and Mia Farrow asked if she could play Daisy.

They'd worked together on evans first big Paramount success, which was Rosemary's Baby.

So now he's trying to put this movie together and he needs someone to adapt the book, and the first person he goes to is Truman Capote, and Truman Capote has paid three hundred thousand dollars to do an adaptation of The Great Gatsby, and his draft has a storyline in which Nick Caraway is an overt homosexual and Jordan Baker is a vindictive lesbian, and you know a lot of the sexual politics that Truman Capotte was interested in, but not so much that Robert Evans was interested in for Paramount in the Earth seventies.

So he gets fired but still collects a three hundred thousand dollars paycheck.

Yeah, it's insane to me.

Yeah, And that's kind of the time frame where Truman Capote was writing the stories, the novellas or novelettes that were adding all of his wealthy swans, his friends in New York City.

So he was, you know, doing a lot of drugs.

He was not not in the best mental health state.

So I feel like he was just trying to put his his ideas and thoughts into the script, which they were trying to an extent followed the novel.

So yeah, he was those were thrown out.

So and you know, I'm a fan of the nineteen sixties Truman Capoti in the nineteen fifties when he, you know, in Full Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany's one of my favorite movies.

So I just was so disappointed when I read that about Truman Capote kind of trying to himself into the movie.

And then he was the CoStim three hundred grand, which you know back then that was a lot of the budget.

Oh yeah, oh yeah.

And everything you're saying is valid, but there's still a huge part of me that wants to read that Truman Capodi draft of this script.

Yeah.

Nice.

And then from there they offered the job to Robert Town.

Uh.

And they offered him one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars, so not quite as much as Truman Compoda got, but still a huge chunk of change in the early seventies.

And Robert town refuses because he said, I didn't want to be the unknown Hollywood screenwriter who fucked up a literary classic.

So what did he go off and make instead?

Jacobsru So that gets him an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, makes him one of the most sought after screenwriters in Hollywood.

And it's all because he said no to The Great Gatsby and did Chinatown instead.

So that if that was the end of the story of the adaptation of the script, that would be incredible enough.

But mom who ends up writing the adaptation of The Great Gatsby for this movie, Francis Ford Koppe because he had just worked with Robert Evans on The Godfather, And so he he goes and he actually lives in Great Neck, New York, which is where f Scott Fitzgerald fictionalized that as west Egg in the novel.

So Copla is like, well, I gotta go live where Gatsby lit or where f Scott Fitzgerald lived in order to effectively adapt the book.

And what ends up happening is if you listen to Copola, because he said this many times, he says that the director didn't pay any attention to his draft and that the script that he wrote did not get made.

So now I want to read that draft of the screenplay to see, you know, was anything that Copla wrote actually you know, maintained for the screen or did the studio make a lot of changes, because I would not put it past Robert Evans.

Robert Evans was known to make changes to his movies like it just it's a really interesting story about just how the script came to be, Yeah.

There was quite a journey to get it there.

But and I know that there are a lot of critics you don't like this film, but you're really liked it.

So I kind of got romanced into it because he was just so into it, and you know how much he talked about it and kind of dissected it and analyzed it and used his favorite quotes from the book and the movie, and then he talked about areas where they tweaked the quotes a little bit to make him fit better into the script.

I think one of them was like the longest day of the year, you know the quote.

Where what do people plan?

Yeah, that wasn't part of it is do you ever wait for the longest day of the year and then miss it?

I always wait for the longest year and then miss it.

And it was like what do people plan?

And it was like she They kind of wanted to integrate that storyline into what they were going to do, so your dad said, that's not the quote, and then he has the book out and he's going through it.

So it was kind of funny.

I love to see.

That is something I got from dad is obsessive movie watching like watching the degree that it becomes a little bit, you know, like a mental disorder, Like I totally get it.

It's fine, yeah, but I will say anytime Daisy Buchanan says, you know what, the people do this, and people do that, and what just put the word poor in front of people, and it's everything you need to understand about Daisy Buchanan.

She says, I don't understand what people do.

She's basically saying, I don't understand what commoners do.

She's a very Marie Antoinette like figure, which is interesting.

Right, And she literally tells him.

She literally tells Jay Gatsby rich girls don't marry for boys and that was the reason why she didn't wait for him.

So, I mean there is a lot of class dissection in this movie, I'm sure.

Yeah, And as part of the Roaring twenties and kind of that era of opulence and you know, excess, and so it fits right in with the era that Scott Fitzgerald is trying to kind of exploit and show how crass and you know, overtly excessive.

So he gets into that.

So I think your dad really enjoyed dissecting the book and the movie and kind of trying to figure out the hidden nannies and deep guys that he did.

After these messages, we'll be right back This.

Wednesday, it's all Redford all night long.

First, Redford's the ultimate mountain man, great hunter.

Then he's being hunted down.

People are trying to kill me.

Next, Redford's a hotshot lawyer and courtroom casanova.

I have Jack, And finally he's a sheriff, hot on the trail.

I know where he's going in on the Guinea.

Spend the night with Robert redfirst this Wednesday, begetting get eight oh five.

He started turn to TVs.

In casting Gatsby.

First they went to Warren Beatty.

Warren Beatty didn't I can't remember what the reason was.

He ends up passing on it.

Nicholson was kind of brought on when it was still going to be Alan McGraw's Daisy.

Nicholson didn't want to work with Alan McGraw because he didn't think she was a very good actress, so he went his separate ways.

And then when it switched over to Mia Farrow, Robert Redford started campaigning for this movie hard.

He really wanted to play Gatsby, and he actually said during a twenty fourteen Film Festival panel that he wondered if the studio, and by the studio, he means Robert Evans had actually read the book, because evidently Evans' big resistance to casting Robert Redford was that Robert Redford was blonde?

What and then Redford asked Evans to show him in the book where Fitzgerald ever mentioned Gatsby's hair color.

I'm Gonna save you sometime, guys.

He doesn't ever mention Gatsby's hair color in the book.

No, no, So that was just a weird thing by Evans.

But eventually we get past that.

We cast Robert Redford, and we hired director Jack Clayton, who also directed an amazing horror film that will be covered at some point on the show, The Innocence, which is this very eerie British horror film that I really really like.

And then another movie that dad loved was actually directed by Jack Clayton, Something Wicked This Way Comes, which is also an episode of this podcast.

He definitely liked that movie.

So we've got the screenplay, we've got the director, we've got our cast in place.

Now we were watching the movie and the opening of this film.

I just have to say, speaking of Nicholson, the Shining has forever broken my brain because you cannot show me grand but empty old spaces with echoey old timey songs playing and not expect me to assume that that place is haunted.

Yeah, yeah, and showing the pool yep.

You know all of those things are in the foretelling or foreshadowing.

I guess that is what it's called.

Yeah, but yeah, that is pretty eerie when they go through and there's like broken isn't there like broken glasses?

Yeah, the broken glasses.

And I'm going to tell you this right now, the identical twin flappers that we meet at the party, doesn't They did not help this connection.

Now, I'm sorry, I'm getting shining vibes.

And then you show me twin girls like what what's gonna come?

Jita bug with us, Danny forever.

Yeah.

All they were missing was what was that a big wheel then around?

If somebody had come writing up on one of those, then I would have said, it's a copy.

I think at this time all bikes were big wheels.

I think they were all still that bike with the giant wheel in front.

Oh my god, Oh, this is this is Crazy, and then we get a short After a short medley, we hear What'll I Do, which is a gorgeous song that I think was written by Irving Berlin originally Yes, Yes, uh, and then adapted by Nelson Riddle, who did the music for this movie.

And then actually Linda Ronstadt did a version an arrangement of it later that was a kind of a modest hit for her, and I think it's an absolutely gorgeous song.

It's one of the things that I have always remembered about this movie throughout my life is this opening song.

Yeah, and I you know, your dad and I had the vinyl the album.

It was a verysful South.

Yeah, and we would listen to it.

So the soundtrack arguably was more successful than the movie commercially.

Yeah.

Yeah, And we're introduced to Nick Carraway, who was played by Sam Waterston in his first big movie like Little Baby, Law and Order as Nick Carroway.

Yeah.

He was perfectly cast for that role.

Oh yeah, And I did see there was a documentary.

I think it was in twenty twenty because your dad and I watched it together.

But it was a documentary about the connection of Connecticut and how some people think that f Scott Fitzgeral was inspired by Westport, Connecticut instead of Long Island, and he is part of that documentary and just to watch him get so into He's very into the storyline and the settings, and you know, it's just cool to see him get so invested in the story of why these people think that that's where Scott Fitzgerald was inspired.

So if you ever get a chance to watch that documentary, it's really I think it's called Gatsby and Connecticut that it's a really good documentary and he's part of it, and he's still to this day, which you know, that was what fifty years over fifty years ago, and he's still heavily invested in that storyline.

He's giving me big Anthony Perkins energy in this movie.

He's very weird ish chef gaunt and he lurks in the shadows like I love it.

I also love the fact that Sam Waterston is actually a graduate of Yale, which is the same alma mater as Nick Carraway.

Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool.

I didn't know.

That makes total sense that Sam Waterston would have gone to Yelle.

That dude always seem like a thinking man's actor, and he's you're right, he's excellent in the I.

Am so distracted by trying to picture Jack Nicholson as Jay Gatsby.

I can't pake sure at all, because one thing I think about Jack Nicholson is I do like a lot of his movies, but he's kind of always the same character.

I mean, if you watch him act in a movie, you can always see Jack Nicholson, and then you got somebody like her.

Except well, no, you know what, mom, you're right, because even as the Joker, he's Jack Nicholson's I.

Can still see Jack Nicholson.

Yeah, And like Robert Redfern in different movies, is such a different character.

And Tom Hanks is another one.

I mean, if you think of Philadelphia's story and then Forrest Gump, I mean you can't even see Tom Hanks, you know, it's like he kind of evolves into the character.

But Jack Nicholson, how in the heck would he have played Jay Gatsby.

It would have been he would have had that grin and he just would have been Jack Nicholson.

He would have made it better Tom, I think than an for sure.

Tom definitely, Yeah, the kind of evil guy.

Yeah, I cannot help but be distracted by you mentioned Tom Hanks and then said the Philadelphia Story.

So now because because it's just philadelph the Philadelphia Story with Tom Hanks from Philadelphia is a completely different movie, you know what I mean, Like just carry Grant being like and I also have aids and it's like, what this is?

This is what is happening.

We've changed the entire tune of this film.

I don't understand what's happening.

Yeah, I was just trying to make a point where there's the actors who actually, you know, Johnny Depp, I mean, there's actors who turn into someone else Gary and they play But yeah, I just, yes, definitely, I just don't see that with Jack Nicholson.

Nicholson always Jack Nicholson.

He is nicholsoning all over the place in every role.

You're absolutely right, Yeah, but.

Like somethence got to give.

I love that movie and I love terms of endearment, but I just he's always pretty close to the same person in every movie, every role.

Constantly juggling charisma with borderline personality disorder.

Yeah, that's pretty much all of Jack Nicholson's roles for sure.

Yeah, I just can't picture herm as Jay Gatsby.

And I think I've spent a lot of my youth even as we would watch this movie together thinking, I feel like I labored under the misconception that Mia Farrow turns in a bad performance here, But in reality, I think the frail, flighty, ephemeral Mia Farrow is perfect for the role of a completely vapid, like noncommittal, just wayfish type of a spoiled rich girl.

Like She's kind of perfect for this role, and her performance actually nails it.

Now, I don't like the character of Daisy, but I'm also not supposed to like the character of Daisy.

Yeah, right right.

And the other thing too, is you can kind of tell people that haven't read the book, aren't familiar with the book, and don't appreciate the movie compared to those who have read the book, understand the book, and watch the movie.

So the character that Mia Farrow played, she pretty much played it to the book.

Ye, And you know, she was the kind of you know, Daisy was a very that's my words are leaving me right now.

She was, you know, flighty and kind of flaky, and you know, there wasn't a lot of substance to her.

She was very shallow, that's a good word.

And I think that you're supposed to not really like her but kind of understand her and also understand Jay's insatiable need to prove himself worthy of her.

I just feel like that's a big part of the book when you read it, and if you're trying to say, oh, she should have played her, you know, more Demir and more, well, that wasn't the character.

So yeah, I just feel like there are a lot of people who maybe aren't familiar with the book, and then you know, sometimes they say, you know, if you read the book, you're not going to like the movie.

And I'm sure that exists too for this, But I know your dad absolutely hated the one in twenty was it twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen?

Oh my god?

Oh he hated that one.

I do too, and it was bad Larmine, you know, and I And it's not that he hated every baz Larman movie because he liked that.

What was the one with Nicole Kidmange?

He liked that movie, Mulan Rouge.

But I feel like The Great Gatsby and especially the Knick storyline, where he was like in an asanasylum or something, and he kind of dreamed up the whole thing was so weird that your dad absolutely hated that version of it.

But then he knew it wasn't true to the book at all, so he didn't like it.

There were critics that criticized that Robert Redford and Mia Farrow had no chemistry on screen.

I don't with that, but I do think it's interesting that Miya Pharaoh blames their lack of on screen chemistry on the fact that Robert Redford was completely absorbed in the by the Watergate scandal that was that was kind of happening as they were shooting, and he was just like all kinds of obsessed with it.

He spent all his free time locked in his trailer watching the political scandal unfold on television.

And then two years after this, Redford plays Bob Woodward in All the President's Men Too Much Acclaim.

So it's almost like you can kind of connect the dots from being obsessed with it while shooting this movie to playing Bob Woodward a couple of years later.

Yeah.

Well, and if you read the book The Great Gasby, it's not really that he loves Daisy it's he's obsessed with her.

So I don't know that he really did have a lot of chemistry with her.

I think Daisy was miserable in her marriage to Tom, so she was just really ecstatic that someone was paying her attention and you know, lavishing her with gifts and you know, attention and all those things that she lacked.

She got gifts from Tom, but they weren't like gifts that were sweet and sentimental, you know.

And I feel like there really wasn't chemistry between the two characters.

It was a kind of a well what your dad always said, they're just impossible loves, you know.

They write about these things where people think that they love someone or just want so badly to be with someone, but it's not the right person for them, you know.

So I don't know that there was supposed to be a lot of chemistry.

I think it was awkward because they were very young, you know, had a love story, and then we're apart for a lot of years, and then you can't just pick up where you left off, you know.

So I do feel like it was awkward.

Well maybe the chemistry, yes, yes, But the chemistry between them I think was there, but it wasn't supposed to be like this easy love story.

It was very complex and jaded, you know.

And I think that's the problem, is that that you're describing that sort of easy, like big soft romantic film is exactly what Robert Evans wanted.

He wanted another love story because Love Story was a massive hit, and that's kind of how he saw the movie unfolding.

That's how the movie was sold in the marketing.

In a lot of ways.

Some of the ways that these scenes are constructed, you can feel the movie sort of pushing for that, but that's really not what it is.

It's two people who have idealized each other so much that they're not even they're not even acquainted enough with themselves to be able to love another person, first of all, and they're not even really in love with each other.

They're in love with the ideal version of each other.

And the fact that a green light in this movie is what Gatsby like spends his nights looking at, is him pining over not Daisy, but this this optimism, this hope for what his relationship would be with the woman he loves.

And that's why it's a green light that represents his hope because light is not something you can hold in your hand.

It's across the water.

It's unobtainable.

It's something you can't ever.

Have, which is why just isn't that what the quote says, Yes, absolutely grasping for something that was just out of his reach, precisely, and that's what he was doing.

Yeah, and then rounding out this cast, I mean, you've got the great Bruce Dern as Tom Buchanan.

I always put him on the same shelf of counterculture personages as a Jack Nicholson, a Dennis Hopper, and a Peter Fonda.

Yeah, I mean he was.

He's a great actor, but he plays that part so kind of self absorbed, and he almost seems disinterested in Daisy until Gatsby shows an interest in her.

Yeah, and then it's almost like that's my property.

How dare you?

You know?

It's the way a little kid is playing with a toy and then puts it down, doesn't care about it until some other kid picks it up.

It's exactly what that is.

Yeah, And your dad always commented on one of his what he thought was really eerie was the billboard.

So you're gonna, yeah, what is that area called?

I forgot now, but they would drive through to get to New York City.

It's the Valley of Ashes, is what they call it, The Valley of Ashes.

Yeah, they would drive through there and there was that you know, gas station and auto repair place, and then across from that was that billboard and what was the man's name that was in mechanic.

J oh oh oh, the mechanic is George Wilson.

George Wilson, which I remember.

Because that's also the name of Dennis the MENACE's neighbor that he torments, Mister George Wilson.

So I'm like, it's like, it's it's mister Wilson and Daisy the Menace.

It's like, hey, mister Wilson, I ran over your way.

Yes, completely different movie, But your dad always said it was just kind of ear because George Wilson looked at it like that was God, the eyes of God watching over.

And James said, you know, from that point on when they would show that scene in the movie, it was just creepy because you know, those eyes were looking at everything going by, and it was kind of everyone who was passing by there.

At least the characters from the movie were not you know, Tom would go to New York to meet his mistress, and then Daisy and Jay are writing in the car together to you know, have their little side fling going on.

And then eventually, you know what happens to Daisy is that, you know, she runs over the mistress.

So it's kind of it's kind of iconic the way that that billboard was almost its own character in the movie.

Yes, yes, the eyes of a higher power, the idea that the past, you know, is always with us and we know we can't necessarily run from it, we also can't recreate it.

And but just going back to Bruce Stern in this movie, ever since I was a kid, whenever, like now into adulthood, whenever I want to do an impression of Bruce Dern, it's the line from this movie where he says that dog's a bit like it's able to just be saying that line when his mistress Myrtle played by Karen Black in this movie, who actually won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress for this movie, but then didn't even get a nomination for an Oscar, which anytime that happens where an actor wins a Golden Globe for a role but then doesn't even get nominated for an oscar.

It's wild.

It's absolutely wild to me.

But she sees that guy peddling dogs on the side of the road and has that line where she goes, I'd like one of those police dogs.

And the way she says dog, she choos on that word with so much Brooklyn that she sounds like Colin Ferrell and the Penguin.

Do you know what I mean?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I have some interest.

They had some interesting accents from this movie because you know Daisy was when's she from Louisville, Kentucky?

She has so yeah, your dad, we were sitting there one night watching I remember this Miami Bys, and she came on the screen.

He goes, myrtles on Miami Bys.

I have this theory where if you look at the seventies, eighties, and nineties, the seventies represented by Colombo, the eighties represented by Miami Vice, and the nineties represented by Tales from the Crypt, every working actor in Hollywood would show up in one or more of those series, depending on the time period in which they most worked.

Right, it's crazy the list of guest stars.

I thought that was so funny.

When your Dad said Myrtles on Miami Vice.

After these messages, we'll be right back for.

The first time ever Robert Redford as you've never seen him before, introducing Robert Redford.

Surprising questions like shocking answers, so frightening secrets he's never told my personal life bloopers you won't believe, incredible scenes you've never seen Robert Redford's and NBC exclusive seventy eight seven Central.

She's insane, Like she tells this very wistful story about how she and Tom met and how much she adores him.

But then he accidentally steps on the dog's tail and she's ready to like stab him, and then they get into this huge fight and then, uh, you know, she and Gatsby share something too, and that they're both lying about who they are.

But Gatsby's kind of lying for the benefit of someone else, whereas Myrtle is lying to make herself feel better, like to be to kind of perpetrate.

I guess that is actually more of a similarity than I thought.

Is they're they're both sort of perpetrating, living this life of opulence, but there's a pain associated with Gatsby doing it, and Myrtle is just fully embracing this.

Like when she's in that penthouse that that Tom is paying for and they're throwing that party, She's like, Oh, these servants, you really do have to stand like, lady, you live above a gas station, what do you know about dealing with.

Well, she definitely was playing a role, and I think the anger that she showed towards Tom that was almost out of nowhere was kind of her anger at him for not letting her live that life all the time.

So she was angry at him for taking her back to the gas station, you know, and kind of jump from her there.

I think she would do it under the guise of going into town to see her sister.

Wasn't that how she got to New York?

Yes, okay, so he would kind of send her back.

He didn't take her back, but he would send her back to her you know, ashy terrible life, and she was angry at him because of it.

Her husband, George played by Scott Wilson, a very prolific actor who many people know years later as the Old Man from The Walking Dead, so he had a fantastic career.

And then, of course we can't forget about Jordan Baker, the professional golfer, the friend of Daisy's, the you know, for a time love interest of Nick Caraway played by Lois Chiles.

And as I mentioned before, she is a bond girl.

She played doctor Holly Gooodhead in Moonraker five years after this movie would come out or seventy seventy nine, No, yeah, five years alo.

I think she's gorgeous in this movie.

That she's wonderful in this movie.

She's got this great sort of come hither voice, but also this wry understanding of everyone's foibles.

And there's a great line where Nick is talking to Daisy and Daisy's like, I'm gonna have you marry Jordan, and Nick kind of playfully says, oh, would Jordan marry a man with no money?

And Daisy, with absolutely no sense of humor at all, goes, of course, not like that's just absolutely of course, we would never do that.

So it's like she doesn't even realize that this belief, yes.

Girls don't marry poor boys.

Yes, that classism is so ingrained in her that she doesn't even think of it as being insulting.

It's just like that's just a fact of life.

Yeah, And Moonraker, I, of course I'd like Roger Moore was my favorite Bond, which gave your dad a lot of this staying because that's probably his least favorite.

But the movie Moonraker, your dad said that was just so surreal, and I said, like Goldfinger wasn't.

I mean, we'd have these conversations about how they were just outlandish storylines, Like none of Sean Connery's storylines are outlandish, But I do remember seeing her and Moonraker and just thinking she is beautiful lady and a good actress.

I mean, she's a very good actress.

But I think it's funny that your dad always was a little less excited about Roger Moore's Jacks Bond.

I mean, it's hard to argue which is more real a henchman who throws a razor brimmed hat or a henchman who has razor metal teeth.

Like I understand that maybe we're comparing apples to apples at some point.

I definitely prefer Sean Connery, but I can't argue that there aren't ridiculous things in Sean Connery Bond movies, because they're definitely yeah.

Yeah, I mean it's supposed to be kind of a mix between fantasy and action.

I mean, because you know, a lot of things that James Bond did and went through just aren't really possible.

So yeah, it's we obviously loved the Bond franchise, but yeah, it's just funny that that particular Bond movie or Dad thought was a little too far out there, no pun intended.

So finally we get to the man of the hour, though to be fair, he doesn't have a line of dialogue in the film till thirty five minutes, as I mentioned before.

And what's interesting about Robert Redford is he sort of lived a lost generation youth.

You know, his father was an accountant for Standard Oil.

He went to high school.

He was good friends with Natalie Wood because she went to the same high school.

And incidentally, she was offered the roll of Daisy Buchanan in this movie, but she refused to submit screen test.

She was kind of disqualified.

But you know he was, Uh he got into some trouble.

He lost his baseball scholarship at the University of Colorado because of drunkenness.

Uh So that's a that feels very Gatsby to me.

And he's been two summers working at Yosemite National Park which is probably where he learned a lot of his you know, affinity for conservative or conservation conservation.

Uh.

And then he decides he wants to be an artist and spends a year traveling around Europe, hitchhiking, living in youth hostels, just trying to become a painter, which again disappearing into Europe, probably having as many myths and rumors circulation circulating about him as Gatsby does in this movie, like is he a spy?

Is he an oil man?

You know I heard he killed a man?

Is he he grew up in Texas, that he grew up in Saint Paul.

It's no one really knows Gatsby, And I feel like there's a little bit of that that uh enigma in the early years of Robert Redford.

But when he realized he wasn't good at visual art, he comes home, decides to study theatrical design at the Pratt Institute in New York and also takes acting classes at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts.

And I think the thing that makes him perfect for this role.

And this goes back to what we were talking about with the Baz Luhrmann version and why it doesn't work is that Robert Redford can look the part of a dashing tycoon, but he can also communicate a disease with an awkwardness that you know he's clearly trying to hide, but it's very present.

There's something vulnerable about Robert Redford.

There's something very relatable about him.

Even as he is like otherworldly handsome, you still like there's something about him that seems tragic, that seems sad, and you know he he It indicates that he's disguising something, and it's underlining that he doesn't really belong in this world.

And I think that's the problem with the Bas Luhrman version, is that DiCaprio is somebody.

I never bought him as anything other than a billionaire.

I don't buy Leonardo DiCaprio as anything other than a megastar.

And when you put him in a tuxedo and make him a rich boy, like, that's all I'm going to see.

And in fact, my big problem with Bas Lherman's version, and why I think he's exactly wrong as the filmmaker to direct The Great Gatsby, is that the book is all about how the trappings of wealth are a pitiful facade and not something to be admired.

But Lherman is obsessed with the glitz and glamour of excess.

He's every bit the kind of person who would show up for those Gatsby parties and admire Gatsby for being so rich and glamorous and not care when iota about the man giving the party.

He's bas Lherman is the is the wrong person.

He's latching onto the wrong things in the book, and that's why that version doesn't work for me at least.

Yeah.

Yeah, I know, your dad absolutely hated it, and I was kind of in awe of the sets and the way they filmed it, and I mean, it was beautiful the way they did it, but your dad was just so distracted by that Nick storyline.

It couldn't even really get past that part of the movie.

So yeah, I just don't feel like it was true to the book.

I don't feel like it was cast very well.

I just I really didn't enjoy it that much.

But I did love, you know, some of the sets and how they kind of used the color gold a lot in the movie, and it was cool how they did it, but it wasn't It didn't feel like the Great Gaspee.

To me, it felt like a different story that was based on it, you know, kind of a different version of it.

But yeah, I feel like Robert Redford kind of he's a smooth, good looking character, but he also has kind of a rugged kind of edge to him.

Sure, you could kind of always see that poor guy who was trying too hard to be the smooth, squab rich guy, you know, and just like that the shirts in the closet.

Do you remember that scene with me and Farah where he's just throwing the shirts up in the air and he has hundreds and hundreds of these same shirts and all these different colors.

And then one of the funniest things to me in the movie is when Brewster makes a comment about was it a yellow suit?

It's a pink suit.

Pink suit driving a yellow car.

That was the two things that loos.

Like easter egg, God damn it.

It was pretty funny because you know, kind of like Elvis Presley wore like some pretty severe colors for a man.

You know, he would wear a gold suit or you know, pink loose wuede shoes and a pink shirt, and you know a lot of people made those comments with him but it worked on them, So I think the pink suit worked for Robert Redford.

But it was just so funny when Bruce Den you know, the character Tom points that out.

I just love Bruce Stern's expression and the way he said it.

Well, we know Tom is very conservative.

He he wastes no time at that first lunch, launching right into Hey, it's nice to meet you.

Nick.

Now here's why the white race is being subsumed, and it's like, whoa dude, I just sat down, like what.

He tries to sound intelligent.

He's trying to talk, you know, current day topics, and he's just trying to be relevant all the time.

It is annoying, but yeah, he dives right into that kind of controversial talk and you can tell Nick is much more intelligent and very uncomfortable with the topic of conversation.

But if Twitter was a person in the twenties, it would be Tom Buchanan unfortunately.

Right, But speaking of being.

Exactly speaking of being faithful to the book.

Even accidentally, this version many of the extras in the party scenes, because there are multiple scenes of parties that Gety's house.

Gatsby is throwing these parties basically to kind of lure Daisy in and show how what he's peacocking with these parties essentially, and many of the extras and the party scenes were recruited from the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, because military officers had to be clean cut, so their hairstyles kind of worked for what twenties men would have been wearing.

These had to be so clean cut.

But Sam Waterston said that very much like Gatsby's guests in the movies, these guys would just come and go as they please, whether the take was done or not.

They would just disappear, and they would leave pieces of their costumes all over the lawn.

Like very much the sort of careless frivolity that typified the nineteen twenties was alive and well in the seventies, and these extras that would just you know, show up to these parties and leave whenever they felt like it.

Yeah, that I didn't.

I didn't know that was those were military people and that were extras.

That's interesting that they would be.

They're all over Connecticut, you know, and all over Rhode Island, and so that makes sense that they had a you know, a good pool to pick from to align with the twenties style.

But I also thought that they Meyer Wolfshein.

Yes, what was.

That actor's name, Howard do Silva, Howard da Silva.

I thought he was very well fast too.

Oh yeah, and he's kind of he's kind of clueless on what Gatsby's doing as well, because he thinks that Nick is some kind of deal someone that they're making a deal with, and doesn't really make the connection that it's a neighbor and a.

Friend right right, right now.

It almost blows the cover.

Yeah, Meyer Wolfshein is a character that's always fascinating me, but for different reasons when I was young versus now.

So this actor, Howard di Silva playing Meyer Wolfshein, He's a character is clearly supposed to be a gangster, and his name is a reference to Meyer Lansky, who helped form the Mafia Commission along with Lucky Luciano in the nineteen twenties and as a mafia nerd and a mafia history nerd, I love the that's a reference to that, but he's also a reference to Gatsby says that Meier Wolfsheim is the guy who fixed the nineteen nineteen World series, which is something that did actually happen, and the person behind it was Arnold Rothstein, who was a gambler and a bootlegger in New York and managed to fix the nineteen nineteen World Series and convince eight different players from the Chicago White Sox to take a dive.

It's one of the biggest scandals in baseball, and in fact, those players' lifetime ban was only just lifted within the last year.

You know, it's crazy how how long that was a stain on professional baseball.

But what I appreciate now about this character is the actor Howard de Silva, because he was a prolific actor in the forties who got blacklisted in nineteen fifty one because he was the first he was the first creative brought in front of the House on American Activities Committee and Josein McCarthy who said, I'm gonna plead the fifth I'm not gonna name names, I'm not even gonna answer any of these questions, and because of that he got blacklisted.

But I also found out that he actually played George Wilson, the gas station attendant, the tragic cuckholded husband in this movie.

In the nineteen forty six version of the Great Gatsby.

I don't think I've ever seen that version.

I haven't seen any of the other versions.

And what's crazy, mom, is that Paramount was so focused on trying to make this movie a success that they actually suppressed the nitrate prints of the other two versions, the nineteen twenty six and the nineteen forty nine version, so that they so that this version would kind of like be the only one that could get circulated.

Well because of them doing that, that decision led to prints of both films being lost, and a print of the forty nine version was rediscovered in twenty twelve, but the nineteen twenty six version remains lost.

They don't know where the print of that movie is.

So, yeah, they kind of went overboard with their attempts to market this movie and make it kind of the forefront of adaptations.

But also in this movie, there's a character named Clip Springer who's just this guest who won't leave, played by Edward Herman.

Yeah, he just plays and sings and walks around in a robe and.

Clearly taking military grade LSD.

Yes, he's on something.

He's you know, he is an actor you probably know from Lost Boys or Reds or Overboard or if you were a child of the nineties like I was.

He's Richie Rich's dad in the Richie Rich film with Macaulay Culkin, that I saw far too many times as a kid.

Yes, so it was fun to see him turn up on this.

But also speaking of blast from childhood, Gatsby's father who turns up for the spoiler alert funeral at the end of the movie is Robert's Blossom, who is only forty nine at the time of shooting, but he looks like he's ninety.

And there's a lot of buzz right now about the Netflix series Monster, in which Charlie Haunham plays ed Geen Robert's blo.

The same year as this Gatsby movie came out, in nineteen seventy four, started a movie called Deranged for American International Pictures, which is this very grimy, drive in exploitation film about a serial killer loosely based on ed Gean.

And it's crazy because Thom Savini did all the makeup for that movie, and Bob Clark, who directed A Christmas Story and Black Christmas and Porky's, was like an uncredited producer on the movie.

But what's really wild about that is that most people my age know Roberts Blossom is the old man neighbor from Home Alone.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Buzz claims is the south Bench shovelslayer, but it is actually a really sweet old man and has like the most heartfelt moment at the end of the movie.

That's Roberts Blossom.

That's Jay Gatsby's DAAs movie.

I can see it now, but I didn't make the connection before.

So yeah, I just that's a very interesting character.

And he was not in the movie for very long.

Only did really what one scene or was there two scenes?

I think he shows up at the house and then in the funeral is kind of done in voiceover, but you do see him at the funeral for sure.

Yeah.

Yeah, And he's kind of eating a sandwich.

And I always wondered that beginning of the movie they show a sandwich half eaten and a fly for alling around on it.

Do you remember that?

Oh yeah, it's it's clear like there's a lot of foreshadowing.

Myrtle says something about she says something about kill me, Like when they're at the party and Nick and Jordan have a conversation about how it makes two.

It takes two to make a car accident.

Like there's a lot of foreshadowing for sure throughout the movie.

After these messages, we'll be right back Special next Sunday at an earlier hour.

The loss is quite a card player, Mister.

He cheats the Sting comes to television non ABC.

Paul Newman, Robert Redfride two great styles in the movie that taught America.

It's not how you'll play the game, it's how you win.

It's not as tough as he thinks either.

Westee Next Sunday at eight seven cent one, mounting on ABC.

Another thing I think is noteworthy, though, is that this movie was We're talking about how beautiful this movie is, and it really is gorgeous.

It was shot by Douglas Sulcom, who shot all of the Indiana Jones movies, shot the original Italian Job, Jesus Christ, Superstar, Rollerball, and he's one of the greatest tps of all time in my opinion, and he does an amazing job here because the moments where Daisy and Gatsby are together and they're having this affair, or when Nick is pulled into the world of opulence that isn't really his.

Everything's so shimmery and hazy that it's almost.

Dream like sure.

True.

One of the scenes that I don't know why it resonates with me, is when at the beginning of the movie, not right after the foreshadowy scenes are done, and Nick is in the little motor boat steering to go across the sound to get to his new place, and his hat flies off, yeah, and he has to fish it out of the water.

That it was just such a telling thing that, you know, something that was his escapes him and he has to retrieve it.

And I think that's kind of pretty telling about what's going to happen to him in the movie too, because you see the character at the beginning of the movie where he's kind of naive and young, and he has to so quickly kind of experience a lot with that careless group of people, and then he has to kind of retrieve himself.

So to me, it was just kind of telling that that was beautifully shocked the way they did it well.

And I love that while there is an elegance to the way that Sulkom shoots the movie, it's never overly indulgent, like there's still plenty of shadow and harsh angles, and he really does try to communicate, you know, the way that the way that old money and new money see the world versus the way that Nick sees the world, and the way that you know, this love story is tragic.

You know, it's beautiful, but it's also tragic, like he tries to communicate that visually, and I think that's amazing.

Yeah.

I really love the look of this movie.

The production design is incredible.

I do think it's also worth noting that this movie was the subject of the cover story for the very first issue of People Magazine.

Really yep, it was Mia Farrow on the cover as Daisy clutching a pearl necklace.

So it was the very first cover of People Magazine.

Wow.

I didn't know that.

So that People Magazine started in seventy four, correct, So yep, that was the year the movie was released.

Wow.

I've been reading it for years and didn't realize that.

One question I feel like we need to ask as we sort of view the movie through a modern lens.

This is always really interesting to me because we're talking about a movie that was made fifty years ago based on a book that was released fifty years before that.

So we're coming up on the one hundredth we are officially at the one hundredth anniversary publishing of The Great Gatsby.

So as we look at this now one hundred years later, I have to ask a question.

Is Gatsby a stalker?

Because he has a fleeing with an eighteen year old girl, he goes off to war.

He reinvents his entire image to be her ideal.

He keeps extensive scrap books of all her mentions in the paper.

He moves in next door to her.

He makes friends with her cousin so that he can set up a casual rendezvous even though he knows she's married.

He stares at that green light at the end of the pier every night, which is I think the East Egg version of watching her through the window.

I just feel like the question needs to be asked.

Is he a start?

Well, I guess there.

Today's version of a stalker is much different because of technology and access to information.

And I don't know, because he really didn't try to contact her until you know the time period of this movie.

So he was I would say obsessed with her, sure, but I don't know about stalking.

But yeah, you could say it was that, you know, nineteen twenties version of it because he was watching her from afar.

But a lot of stalkers are more intrusive, and I feel like he waited a long time.

If he was a true stalker, he was kind of a slow one.

He wasn't as motivated to.

Stock He's playing the long game, Yeah.

The long game of stalker.

I mean, even if you don't find him to be problematic when examined through that modern lens, when you take all of these things together, and the fact that he doesn't even really know who he is, Like, that's kind of the brilliant thing about all these stories circulating about Gatsby is that I don't even think Gatsby knows which one's true anymore.

And the fact that he doesn't know who he is, Daisy doesn't know who she is beyond just thinking that money equals happiness, It's it's easy to see why this romance was doomed from the start.

Definitely doomed, and I think he knew it.

He just couldn't.

He couldn't help himself, you know, he just had to.

And I really think it was a self worth thing, I do, because he just really had to prove that he was worthy because she had, you know, it's emasculating what she did to him, and I mean, and then she tells him that she clutched the letter he wrote her until it fell apart in the bathtub and all that, and I'm like, you know, you really that really didn't help.

I feel like he was just looking for acceptance and acknowledgment that, you know, she could be with him now.

And I don't really feel like she ever did that.

I feel like she was enjoying the attention, but I don't think she ever planned on leaving Tom.

Because of the nineteen twenties, there was a status associated with being married to someone, and if he got divorced and you married new money, then the old money people would kind of abandon you.

So she wasn't willing to give that up.

She was willing to accept the new money advantages, you know, and all the opulence that came with it, because she really wasn't willing to give up.

She was obviously very focused on status and Tom was old money, and there's and if you ever read any biographies about the people from Newport, Rhode Island, the Vanderbilt, a lot of them weren't accepted very well because they were new money and the Astors were old money, and you know, there was Vanderbilts that were kind of shunned in the Newport society, and they were some of the richest people in the world.

But it was new money quote unquote.

So the question becomes before we get into the junk food pairing here, why cover the Great Gatsby?

Isn't it you know, you know, speaking of identity crisis.

Isn't this a movie that's too flowery for junk food cinema, too austere and melodramatic to be junk food?

Like, doesn't it violate our core values?

And honestly, beyond the deeply personal connections I have to this movie, I'm a sucker for Robert Evans and his pet projects, I'll admit it.

Like I'm captivated by the first of all, I'm captivated by the idea that big studio execs and this time dealing in massive sums of money, would even have arty pet projects.

Like those odd intersections of art and commerce fascinate me.

And I also find it fascinating how relevant the book remains, maybe even more so to this day, Like the idea of the vapidness of wealth and the lack of accountability for the rich, and the notion of old money despising new money suggests that they old money believe that they're the only ones who should ever be wealthy, and there's there's the wealth gap that we're still dealing with now.

So I think that's one of the things that I really like find interesting about watching this movie.

It's a book written a hundred years ago, it's a movie made fifty years ago, but it is still very relevant, definitely.

And I think there's two things.

There's wealth and their status.

Yes, And I think that when you have status, usually don't have a lot of status unless you are wealthy.

But just having or acquiring wealth does not necessarily give you status.

So I think there's two sides to that, and I feel like f Scott Fitzgerald experienced that himself and Zelda, you know, his wife, who was a little out there.

She was very enamored with acquiring things and spending money and having parties and all that, and he kind of wasn't.

But I do think that he always felt like he hadn't really and he died really young.

Scott Fitzgerald did.

I think he was in his forties and he just never even felt like he got there in fame or status or and he just always struggled with that.

So I feel like that some of that was ingrained into the character of Jay Gatsby as well.

Wanted it really bad.

I mean, if you watch What's the movie that we all liked that was it was like a fictional movie, but it incorporated Midnight in Paris that what it was.

Yeah, and where you actually see Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway have a conversation and it's just like they're always kind of insecure, even though they're immensely talented.

There's a lot of insecurities that come with, you know, that level of kind of status and fame.

You know, Yeah, well it's that cynicism.

If if the world's gone to hell and nothing matters, then how does anything I do matter?

And therefore have I done anything work?

Like?

All of that lost generation thinking is really really interesting.

But I will admit I think the big enticement for me to want to cover a movie like Great Gatsby on Junk Food Cinema is that I love this adaptation, and based on critical reception, that's not a popular opinion, no, it is this film opened to mostly indifferent or bad reviews and was written off by journalists and critics as a flop and an embarrassment.

Yeah it was.

And your dad was never one to just like mainstream movies.

You know.

He liked what he liked, and he typically it's so funny when you say, how is this something worthy of Jensen cinema?

Your dad tended to pick movies that people other people didn't necessarily like, but he you know how he was, he deep dove into everything.

If he read a book, he wouldn't just read through the pages, he would start kind of dissecting or looking up things he didn't understand.

And so I feel like he felt like this movie was one he could deep dive into.

And that's why I really liked it.

It wasn't because it was so you know, popular and a box office hit and a mainstream movie.

It was because it's way either moved him or caused him to want to learn more or understand more about the character.

So yeah, that's why he liked it.

That your dad's like.

We covered his favorite Christmas movie, The Christmas List, which you know is kind of a joke for everybody, but your dad really loved that movie.

He deep dove into those characters, and you know that people, you know, be careful what you wish for because you just might get it kind of thing.

And so I feel like it is it is worthy of jump food cinema because it and it pairs nicely with something.

And if I were to tell you that, whenever we cover a movie on the show that has a theatrical and director's cut multiple versions, that I prepare for the show by watching one version on my TV and the other on my phone simultaneously, like a lunatic.

Would that would sound maybe a little bit hereditary to you.

Yes, yes, definitely.

Well, your dad the first time we watched it on TV, You're dad had Scott Fitzgerald's book out and he was flipping through trying to make sure that it was following.

I was like, what are you doing.

I said, I've heard books and watch movies, but I've never gotten the book out and tried to follow along, and he kept pausing it.

You know, it was a VHS and he kept pausing it and he was looking in the book and I was like, oh, my goodness, Yeah.

That's incredible.

But I mean, I was just I was looking at some of the reviews right of the time.

Roger Ebert said, quote, it would take about the same time to read Fitzgerald's novel as to view this movie.

And that's what I'd recommend.

Uh.

Pauline Kale asserted that the quote dreamy crushes of Fitzgerald's doomed heroes do not translate well to the screen.

Vincent Cambia of The New York Times wrote in his review the movie itself is as lifeless as a body that's been too long at the bottom of a swimming pool.

Oh my goodness, I know like, and Stanley Kaufman of The New Republic wrote in some this picture is a total failure of every requisite sense ability, A long, slow, sickening bore, how harsh I see, mom.

A normal person would read those reviews and be like, maybe I should stay away from this movie.

I am ravenously attracted to failure in cinematic history, especially something Oh yeah, something this big, something this big with this many notable creators attached that when that failure, when that failure connects with audiences especially And that's what's crazy is as much as this movie was panned by critics and didn't make as much money as they would have liked.

Audience response was so favorable that The Times where Vincent Canby said, you know, this movie is as lifeless as a body been too long at the bottom of a swimming pool.

Two months after that review comes out, they ran another article by Foster Hirsch, and the article is called why are they being so mean to The Great Gatsby because of how well audience is reacted to the movie, basically suggesting that the criticism was unfair and that kind of lightning fast reclamation of a controversial piece of cinema is wildly uncommon, and that fascinates me to no end.

Well, I do think that sometimes critics, and I know you're a film critic too, but I think sometimes critics like to tear apart really pretty people.

And you know, Robert Redford.

I don't think Mia Farrow was a really pretty person, but Robert Redford was just a gorgeous human being.

And I think that sometimes there's critics who just want to pick people apart because they are so gorgeous and so suab and so so.

I think Robert Redford got some thanks because he made several high profile movies pretty close together, and I think sometimes critics just kind of get tired of it, and so they Yeah, so I think sometimes they just pick apart a character because of the actor.

But it's I mean, I know that it's not a movie for everybody.

It's not.

It's a very unique characterization of a book that not even everybody likes that book, but I do.

Your dad loved it.

I'm glad that that passed along to you.

And I think your brother liked it too.

He obviously was a little younger when your dad was obsessively watching it.

But and that's because the DVDs came out and there was all these outtakes that he was able to watch on some of the versions of him, and you know, he could even deep dive more so.

And your brother was, you know, a lot younger, so he was more into video games and things like that.

Been sitting and watching movies with us for hours.

Sometimes I just want to say, to close this out, it's this line from Hersh's article that I feel speaks directly to the Great Gatsby seventy four's appropriateness for this podcast.

And the quote goes like this, For all its rich verbal texture, Fitzgerald's book is not a high tone classic of use only to scholars and graduate students.

It is wonderfully accessible, an important and serious novel with broad popular appeal.

Gatsby, in short, is best seller material of distinction, just the sort of property that movies are equipped to handle.

So basically saying, this book isn't just for snobs, and neither is this movie.

So I thought that spoke to the appropriateness of covering an unjunk food cinema.

But I do.

When you.

Are full?

And what'll I do?

And it is indeed time for our junk food pairing, And Mom, I will let you go first.

What did you select to pair with the viewing of The Great Gatsby seventy four?

Well, I selected a treat that we had every time we went to the East Coast, which was a grinder.

Oh yeah, yes, because.

I felt like they were grinding on constantly trying to find whatever their true meaning was or happiness.

So it was their life was constantly a grinder.

So we get those grinder sandwiches, and your dad said it was always the bread that made them.

But we'd go to those little gas station delis on the East Coast and get the good bread grinders and different meats and cheeses.

And they were just so good.

So my pairing is a grinder, an.

East Coast staple that I still dream about to this day.

My jem food pairing, I am going to recommend a Mary Pickford because if one film ever called for accompanying cocktails, it's The Great Gatsby, set against the backdrop of Prohibition, a time in America wherein alcohol was illegal and therefore people were drinking more than ever.

The Great Gatsby is filled with scene after seeing of people indulging in good times and copious libations.

I did some research into the most popular cocktails of nineteen twenty two this movie is set, and the Mary Pickford jumped out at me.

Mary Pickford is A Mary Pickford is a prohibitionaric cocktail made with white rum, fresh pineapple juice, grenadine, and Marishino liqueur.

It served shaken and chilled, often with a Maraschino cherry.

Why this cocktail?

Why did I pick this one?

Not a sidecar?

Not a French seventy five.

The drink is named for silent movie actress Mary Pickford, who, despite fostering an image of fragility and innocence, was a formidable business woman and a philanthropist to boot and in nineteen eighteen she began dating early movie star Douglas Fairbanks while she was married to another man.

Yes, and they married in nineteen twenty became the first Hollywood power couple, and their celebrity dinners were the toast of the town, very much like the parties at Gatsby's mansion, and they would boast guests such as Charlie Chaplin, Albert Einstein, George Bernard Shaw, Helen Keller, H.

G.

Wells, Sir Arthur Conan, Doyle, Amelia Earhart and Yes, f Scott fan it's.

Gerald, Yes, Yes.

And one of my favorite books, speaking of books, is a historical fiction writer, Melanie Benjamin, and she writes a book, The Girls in the Picture, and it's about Mary Pickford and her best friend who was a silent film movie director, and they were formidable women in an era where women were usually not given much power.

And it goes on to talk about performing United artists with was that Charlie Chaplin and Banks Junior?

And yeah, so it's it was just an interesting book.

So yeah, I like the choice of that cocktail, but it does sound like a girl's cocktail.

So I feel like we've entered some kind of body swap comedy where you brought a sandwich to the table and I brought a cocktail that seems backwards for us.

Well it's like it they go well together.

Maybe so absolutely absolutely and paring well, Mom, thank you so much for this dad level deep dive into the Great Gatsby seventy four.

I'm so glad we got to cover it.

I'm so glad we're gonna be doing a little mini series on the films of Robert Redford, and I couldn't be happier that this was the first movie in that mini series.

Well, and thank you, because you know, any chance I get to talk about your dad, I just love to do it.

So thanks for letting me do this.

Thanks for helping me remember a movie that has a lot of memories for both of us and for our whole family.

So thank you, Brian, and hey, Jenkian's thanks for listening.

And don't forget the Patreon and subscribing.

Mama Jentcy' is a subscriber, and I encourage you to as well.

I don't even have to do the business at the end of the show, because she did it better than I ever could.

Like it's it's just over, you know.

Listen to my mom and do what she says.

Guy, I do what Mama says.

So I'm going to wrap up this episode with, of course, the incredible closing line from The Great Gats to Be by F.

Scott Fitzgerald.

And so we beat on boats against the current, born back ceaselessly into the past, which I think is why I can't stop watching reruns of Double There, But I'm not sure