Let's build the beans, chew the fat, food for thought and jokes on tap, talking with our mouthsfull, having fun, peace of cake and humble pies, serving.

Up slice lively the dressing on the side.

It's naked lunch.

Clothing optional.

Ring drops fall in on my head.

And just like the guy who's feed up too big for his bed, nothing seems to fit those ring drops A fall in on my head?

Think you fall in?

Pete?

How long have we known each other?

Oh?

My god, I don't know it?

Yeah right, oh totally.

Yeah.

Well, you know, for for those who we should introduce Pete, we're going to by the way we're all gathered together, we were going to talk about a different Hollywood icon and then in light of recent events, we're going to discuss the genius of Robert Redford, the impact of Robert Redford.

But we wanted to do it with someone who actually knows something more than us about the film world.

And Pete, can you explain you?

You know, I associate you with Deadline as being sort of a film critic, a film writer.

You know, you know more about the awards that I've lost at the Emmys and Phil the Oscars that Phil has not won yet yet, But can you tell us a little bit about your background, because you actually also worked in TV before you were writing about ov and film forever.

I worked, well, I started as a page at MBC.

I heard you were one of the best pages.

It really was.

Yeah, but that was a great job.

And you know, it was when NBC was actually there in Burbank, and we gave tours and we did all that, but we had a lot of fun, fun times.

What shows do you remember from there?

Oh?

My god, Well, I can tell you that Saturday Night Live had just started about a year before, and they sent Gilda Radner.

It was supposed to be Gilda and John Belushi coming out to do the press tour thing around the pool at the Sheraton Universal.

Yeah, and Belushi backed out at the last minute, so Chevy Chase replaced him.

So me and this other page went and they call him Limo, runs in the limo to the airport to pick them up.

And then I was in charge of GUILDA and I got a good gig.

Yeah.

She had never been to California, what never, and so she just flew in for that day.

They had done the show the night before.

Flew in and got her through twenty five press interviews, all of that and that one day and then I think it was Bill Bixby came up to her and said, you want to go have dinner or something to know I'm going to go back to New York Ork tonight.

And so she turned to me and said.

If Wane Wilder had asked her history changed.

It would have been totally different.

But she said, why don't you get a couple of your page friends and take me on a tour.

I've never been here of La in my little Mustang.

Oh, it's just like my favorite year, the movie it.

Sort of was.

And so I did.

I got these two girls, Melissa and Linda, and they were in the back and Gilda and we were in my little Mustang driving around, went through bel Air, stopped for Falaffels in Westwood, all over the place, and then I was supposed to drop her off.

She had relatives somewhere near Fairfax near CBS.

My gas in my car was going down, but I.

Didn't want to stop.

I had Gilda.

I was taking her on a tour, so I kept going.

I got right near there was a Texico station at the time, right near CBS, and I ran out of gas right in the middle of the road with them.

So Gilda and the two girls got out and pushed.

Well, I steered into the Texico, got gas and dropped her off, and then took her to the airport where she left.

And I got a letter a month later from her, she handwritten note.

It was so great and really sweet, and she thanked me, and she said, I think I probably got the very best page.

But next time I'm in La, pick me up and put gas in your tone.

Oh my god, love Gilda.

All right, I love this story.

But here's something I must ask you.

Yeah, you run out of gas.

You have three women in the car, Yes, and you let them push.

I did, and one of them was Gilda.

Yeah.

I mean they were great, and they did.

They did a good job.

You know.

Good to know it.

Never occurred to you to let one of them steer and you push.

No, that's hysterical.

And by the way, she was great.

You met uh Gilda early?

Did you have you ever in your travels?

Because I will say Robert Redford, who we're discussing today, is one of the most important figures in my love of film.

I know film, you're a huge fan I'm assuming you're a fan.

But one thing is in my world of working in award shows and those sort of things, he almost never participated in.

He had, he had Sun Dance.

He didn't play that game.

And I wonder did you ever deal with him, run into him in your travels?

No?

He never.

He was very elusive in terms of interviews.

He certainly never did the handshake, you know, vote for me kind of thing that pretty much everyone does.

I mean we mentioned Jack Nicholson before.

Jack didn't do it either, really, you know.

But he showed up and sat in that.

Yeah, he loved going and getting the award and whatever.

Redford finally did.

He won an Oscar for Ordinary People Directing, you know.

Oddly enough, in his entire acting career, you know, he only got one nomination for acting, only one in his whole career.

And can you guess what movie that might have been?

Is it all the presents meant?

No?

What is it the sting?

I mean, he's great.

Yeah, I.

Nominated as well for this thing.

No, just Redford.

Of course, the movie won Best Picture, but Redford that was his only denomination as an actor.

And who won that year?

Let's see seventy three Jack Lemon in Save the Tiger, Right.

Yeah, I feel that Robert Redford was probably judged harshly in that regard as an actor, because, like Phil, he was considered too beautiful.

It was too much of a hard throb for his work to be judged all right, this is a rob.

And I always felt that this is what kept us from being taken seriously.

But before we get onto Robert Redford, I should say from the page you eventually you worked in TV for various shows.

Which shows did you?

Well?

I started as a writer actually doing kids comedy stuff locally in LA a show called It I got hired on, which I remember the guy that hired me, Stu Rosen.

He's dead now, but he was great.

He was a great mentor to me.

It was kind of like laughing for kids.

Yeah, And so I wrote all this stuff, very elaborate sketches that would cost them a fortune on this low budget.

And so he came out my first week there and he said, look, I still believe in you, you know, even though I may regret this decision to keep you here.

And but Bill did that just before you got here to me.

But he did, and I just suddenly changed.

I just need a little direction.

I said, write something that's producible, and so I did, you know, I wrote one thing that was a takeoff on a commercial for a toy, but it was the toy that already comes broken, so all we needed was to break a toy.

It was called the Broken Bobblelink and you know the whole sketch.

And from then on I was able to do that kind of show.

And then he brought me in to do this puppet show, Dusty's Treehouse, which won a ton of Emmys and a Peabody Award, and basically he said, think of it as all in the family, you know, except with a squirrel, a crow, and a spider, and that was it.

And so I wrote that Dusty got a gun.

This is a growing man living with these things in the treehouse, that he got a gun that the squirrel got a hold of and accidentally shot the spider Stanley and things like that, heavy stuff.

We got letters from parents.

Was the squirrel racist like Archiepunker?

Not quite, but anyway, So I did that kind of stuff and that led to entertainment Tonight and the entertainment business because the director was working on a brona Barrett's TV Inside Out at NBC, a very short lived show, but I got in there as a researcher, and that's how I started in the TV entertainment world.

I actually sat there and their guest for one week was Richard Dreyfus, and they wanted to know everything about him on TV.

And so they said, I'm asking this of all the candidates, do you know what his earliest TV appearance was?

And I said, well, I think it was on a show called Karen, which was part of a show called ninety Bristol Court, which was three DS.

It comes on MBC.

Who doesn't know that?

And so she went off to tell the producer of that, and I was sitting at her desk and I saw a thing called TV Total Television.

So I just looked it up and I looked up ninety Bristol Court in it, and it had it and it said Richard Dreyfus's first television appearance.

So I showed it to her.

I had that job before I got home.

You know, it was like, did you ever in a million years think your nerddom payoff?

I did?

You did have to tell you because I didn't know what else I would do I was like, I grew up like Robert Redford.

I was born in Santa Monica, I grew up in LA and I just thought, there's nothing else I want to do.

And I didn't come from a show business family, but they supported me.

And we all have the same story, you know, and our parents worried, Yeah, exactly what are you going to do that?

My parents get a job watching television.

But I will say I see I've always felt because it's something I experienced.

I was a journalist of some kind, unlike I think, inspired by Woodward and Bernstein, I became in one of the greatest movies of all time.

I became a journalist, but not really like an entertainment journalist at Rolling Stone, a rock crat or whatever.

That's how I fell into it.

But I've always said that I'm very happy that now that I write TV and all that for the last twenty whatever year is twenty five years, twenty seven years, it's good to have been.

If you're going to be a reviewer, it's good to also know what it's like to be reviewed, because I think it makes you a better critic, more humanistic.

And I've had that experience.

I remember the first time ever.

I was on a plane to LA and reading Entertainment Weekly, reviewing some album I worked on the liner notes for, and I saw something negative said about my liner notes, and I remember being so angry.

I wanted to jump off the plane and get the you know, strangle someone.

But I think it's good for everyone to be reviewed, to review, and it makes you a more holistic.

Do you ever post anything on social.

Oh you know it?

I just did.

I just posted my review of One Battle after Another today.

I heard it amazing, it's amazing movie.

Yeah, Paul, I love Paul Thomas Anderson and so, but this movie just is off the charts.

Great.

Wow.

And Sean Penn actually went on Kimmel to promote it, and he said he never does, he goes on obligatory to promote, but this one he goes, this is the special one.

This is it.

I've never talked about a movie like this.

Yeah, and they're all like, you know, I mean I moderated the Academy of Screening last Friday night.

Well, first of all, it was packed that theater.

Never is I've done it there with ten people in a thousand seat theater.

You know, people are hearing about it.

They wanted to go.

They were lined up around the block I understand for the thing and we had, you know, all the actors and Paul and he got a massive standing ovation, which also doesn't happen at the Academy that much.

You have to go to Can to get that.

Yeah, right, right are you?

Someone is always reporting on the exact length of the standing ovation.

I would like to know.

I'd like to meet the standing ovation time.

I know they're there with their watches.

Yeah, the people I work with and they are, you know, and they have a way.

Well, we're going to start right at the end credits.

You know, some wait till the credits are over and then start because they kind of have a break.

But we count it all and yeah, it's it's out of control.

Well yeah, I tell you, it's a lot like bullshit.

Yeah, it's so and and that's what they go for.

And you see executives in the audience.

Let's keep it going, keep it going.

And you know, so it's every but you know, it's it's a little nuts.

But yeah, I got a bad comment today from somebody that said I inject Trump into all my reviews and something.

But this movie is very pertinent it's about a lot of things going on, and you would think, uh, you know, this deep dark cabal like it's kind of like something Stanley Kubrick would would have done, very satirical, funny stuff.

But you know, definitely.

You're speaking Phill's language with Cooper.

But by the way, Kubri, I mean, I know there's a lot of Kubrick in Paul Thomas Anderson.

And I'm excited because Paul Paul I watch a lot of Dodger games in a suite with him.

He's a big, big baseball fan beyond being a great director.

So it's always better when he has a good movie.

Yeah, because right now the Dodgers are not that much fun, So.

Movie night.

Paul loves doing that.

You know.

Paul turned me on to years ago to a thing called newspapers dot Com because I always was thinking where did I see this movie?

Where did I see that movie?

And I and you can sign up.

It's got every newspaper ever, you know, you want the La Times, It's got every edition going back.

And so I always go to the entertainment section.

You know, where did I see this in nineteen sixty three?

You know, and a lot of times I remember it perfectly and all of that.

So Paul was obsessed with that too, and he likes to know what movies played my favorite theaters here in LA and I'm going to make sure that my movies do that.

And so when he had Phantom Thread, he got focused to take over the Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills, which isn't really a commercial theater anymore.

It's for screenings, and he made them change all the lights to the way it was.

He's you know, but that's him.

He likes he likes the old old style theatricle too.

Let me ask you, completely off topic, but you would know where's the Cinerama?

I thought, Yeah, yeah, it's Dacorian, the name of Deacorean Pacific Theaters.

Yeah, actually owns that.

They owned the Cinerama Dome and that arc light.

The others were all leases, and they got in a lot of lawsuits with around all the arc lights, like for instance, Manhattan Beach where I lived, the arc light was closed for five years, finally taken over by somebody, but there were a lot of disputes and they couldn't reopen without settling all this.

And they're still doing that and they haven't boarded up, but they haven't really started the remodel yet either.

You know, people they were going to remodel it and all of that.

Right now it's in limbo and years.

Yeah, and it you know, we don't know.

My friend actually was running it and every year I would say is it opening this year?

Is it coming back?

And he'd say, yeah, we'll see next year.

Maybe it's still a game.

And it's a historical site in Los Angeles, so they can't tear it down, so to redevelop it.

But the whole idea was to remodel it and bring it back.

And uh, it's a mystery as to when if that will ever.

It's heartbreaking because I ran, I ran into Quinton right there, not that and when he was filming Once upon a Time in Hollywood.

And if they're not going to do it, we have to get the some group of Quentin Spielberg.

Why don't they these guys, if you're as a public service, they have to save at least the cinerometry.

Absolutely, I love what Quentin did with Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and recreated Krakatoa East of Java for remember that, oh yes, and that famous that movie is famous because Krakatoa is actually west of Java.

Yes, that's always pissed us off.

Yeah, but they couldn't change the title.

Oh my God, by the way, with Once Upon a Time, I was thinking about it today and making because I made a list of my five favorite Redford sort of movies performances, and I hope I think we should start and go around and just talk about start with one of us talking about one of our favorites.

Yeah.

But one thing I did I wanted to I did go back last night and watch I was I am going to put on Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.

My son, who I sort of ran this past when I talked to him last night, said you got to go back.

Maybe you should pick the Sting instead, because and I went back and I'm sticking with my Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and part of it.

And I was thinking though about I got to work with Quenton on a little podcast about the music of Once Upon a Time And when I one thing I many things I love about that movie is it has a little with DiCaprio and Brad Pitt.

There's some echoes to me of Newman and Redford.

Wow.

And and always with Brad Pitt, who was you know, he was a protege in some way to Redford.

There's a little echo of just sort of like to me.

So I'll just say my first memories.

My mom, more than my dad, was a movie buff.

But my mom dragged me to the Tenafly Theater to see I think almost every Redford movie.

And in retrospect I realized my mom had It was one of those realizations your mom's a person, because I think she had the hots for Redford like everyone else in history.

And I think the first one would have been seeing as I must have been extremely young seeing Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

Ah.

And is that the only time you've seen it?

I have seen it.

Phil is mister movie night and watches his favorites.

Phil's movie Night movie.

Did we watch that night?

We watched All About Eve?

I believe it was.

Yeah, that was the Held is just the greatest movie about show business.

You talk about clean dialogue, you understand that phrase.

When you see God, it just.

Pops off the screen and you're just like, oh.

My god, it's so good.

Yeah.

Joe Mankowitz, who wrote it, just brilliant.

I finally just saw Cleopatra, which he directed.

I had, I you know, sometimes your shock yourself.

What movie haven't I seen?

Yeah, somehow I never saw Elizabeth Taylor Cleopatra until a couple of months ago at the Academy Museum.

They had a seventy millimeter print.

But you got to take a week off to see it.

I did.

Yeah, it was like so lot, it went on forever.

It is a spectacle.

But yeah it is terrible.

Yeah, except it has the greatest Alex North score.

Yes, beautiful, so physical production beautiful.

But yeah, but no, they could have worked on the script.

They definitely could have.

Well, I think it was originally six hours and then it got cut down.

Really it feels like.

But by the way, Cleopatra I don't think had Redford and it had a different beauty.

But for Butcher to just as we go through a couple of years, I'm sorry we digressed on either one of.

You without question.

Yeah, I can tell you.

And the screenplay William Goldman, I mean, you have an iconic screenplay that almost it was something no one had ever seen before, which was bringing Westerns into you know, modern.

Life exactly, and also bringing humor into it too.

They played off each other so well.

That scene where they're jumping off the cliff and you know, he says, oh, hell, the fall's going to kill you.

You know, their chemistry was undeniable there in terms of that movie.

And then everything they did.

Yeah, I mean when you saw the two of them together, you were in some kind of camelot, yes, exactly of I don't know if there was ever a duo that first of all was the best looking people on the planet.

But then the charm.

Yeah, the values, the humor, of course, but the values that that what they did with their lives.

They could have been just handsome guys, charming.

Guys if you look at actors now, but.

They were They were bank robbers.

Exactly, and didn't look anything like Newman and Redford, right, who does this was Hollywood?

Uh, their their dead bodies were thrilled, betrayed.

By these guys.

But look what they did.

Look what they I mean, the both of them.

Yeah, in terms of legacy, think of the legacy between Sundance and the Newman's.

Which I spectacular people in every way.

And there's no one who didn't like these guys.

No, uh, and and and they're they're one of the kind.

You know, we've seen movie stars quite on that level.

Ever again, maybe I mean Tom Cruise comes close, but he is not.

He's not, you know.

And he of course worked with Newman famously in Color of Money and always was an admirer.

I think Clooney is somewhat is.

Yes, Clooney is a good guy and also involved like they were.

I'm not going to say anything bad about these guys.

But these Newman and Redford were on another level.

And if you want to hear a good Newman story from someone interesting, Alison Janney on one of our earlier episodes.

You know, she was in college run Yon is it, I think, but she he came back to the college to sort of direct I think their show a show at well, And so she got her first break from Paul and Joanne his wife, and she told this great story about that.

I love it.

So they were on top of everything else, these wonderful role models.

Yeah, amazing, and they just did the two films they wanted so much to do a third they did, and Robert Redford had a movie called A Walk in the Woods and Newman died before he could get it made, and so it never it never happened, and so he made it with Ignalty.

Yeah, I mean it wasn't the same, but yeah, well.

You just yearned for that, like the great pairing.

I always wanted to see that that wasn't was.

They started to film The Sunshine Boys with Mathow and Jack Benny.

That's right, yes, oh wow, absolutely idols.

Now George Burns was phenomenal, won an Oscar.

But don't you wish you had seen that.

And Benny Benny got cancer and couldn't do it, And that's a shame because Benny was underrated as a film actor.

You know, he was so known for playing himself essentially, But that would have been that would have been fun.

But I thought it was fun with Burns.

Dance favorite movie is to be or Not to Be?

The original original version?

I was okay, yeah with Jack Benny, Oh yes, I know, and George Washington slept here and stuff that he did.

Yeah, you're enough of a film scholar to maybe answer this, but I'm always struck by.

I think we'll probably talk about another great director who I think doesn't get enough discussion in these days, Alan Pakula, but George roy Hill.

I going back to look at Redford's movies and I'm thinking, I don't think I've heard that name George roy Hill.

Yeah, and he made some major, major movies, And I don't think.

But you would also, you would go just because Redford was in the movie Yeah go And what was the one where he was in the biplane?

That was the great Waldo Pepper.

Nobody mentioned that I watched that last yesterday.

I watched part of it yesterday from you watched that one?

This guy.

The reason I is time, well, late at night, late at night, when my wife goes to sleep and I'm up in the middle of the night.

I put the name Redford in all my streaming services to see what's free.

So I basically I paid for the sting last night part of to watch part of it.

But I did watch a little bit of whatever.

Think it's less than Butch Cassidy.

I prefer Butch Cassidy because I think that's my first memory.

I have two first memories of seeing Redford, and both times I do remember it was like startling because I believe he is a transitional figure in what a movie star looked like, and like I think he looked like the movie stars that my mom would tell me about loving you know Carrie Grant or Rock Hudson, you know these Errol Flynn, whatever, they would talk about a movie star.

And I grew up as a kid.

We always talked about the seventies being our favorite time.

Yeah, and in the seventies there was this transition to leading men being looking more like the kids.

I you know, Dusty hairf and al Pacin he.

Had the best hair in the world.

Well, Robert Redford.

Absolutely Redford had.

It right to the end.

Yes, he had that hair.

I mean, I don't know if he was knowing it.

I have confirmation the hair was real.

Very yeah, amazing from a producer.

On one of his life, he.

Did a cameo in a hardly ever did television after nineteen sixty three.

He was in a bunch of early TV, but he didn't anything that's very famous.

Oh yeah, the Twilight Zone was great for Hitchcock Presents and things he did.

He was even nominated for an Emmy for one at one show.

It wasn't those, but no.

He he did a TV show called Dark Winds.

It's on AMC and it was like just recently, and he was an executive producer and he he did a cameo playing chess in the background with George R.

R.

Martin and the two of them, and so he had a little cameo.

But he still looks like Robert Redford, just older.

But you know, that hair is unmistakable.

I think I think Trump is so jealous of that hair that I was trying to do it and I'm sorry, I know, but you can't.

It's interesting Trump made a They asked Trump about Redford dying, and he said, oh, he was hot, he was great.

I really liked him.

I guess he never read what Redford had actually said about stood for or stood for.

Let me save the podcast by saying, PHILM name one of your absolute favorites.

I'm going to pick one.

I mean, I think we're going to have very similar movies on the list, but I want to pick a deep cut.

Okay, okay, this is a comedy.

Yeah, let's see if you know what it is.

I'm going to give you the year you should be able to get it from that.

Okay, nineteen seventy two the candidate.

No, No, that was seventy two.

Okay, Hot Rock, that's it.

Okay, did you like that movie?

I love?

Hot Rock is a great case Hot Rock with George Siegel.

Most people wouldn't pick the Hot Course, not though, because it's it is a deep cut.

There's no I have.

Never seen it, and I listened to a podcast where they picked that as they called like, I think the b cuts like a prime performance.

You love you just love him.

He almost like glides through this comedy.

It's fun.

But it's such a well written movie.

It's from a great uh writer, Damn you might know the writer.

Peters directed it.

Oh yeah, I don't know.

But it's based on a book.

Yeah.

Uh.

People, if you're listening, you can you can write it.

But it's it's Yeah, I listen.

I was twelve.

I saw it, but I just remember loving it.

Remember my parents remember sneak previews.

Yes, always, they saw it on a sneak preview.

Yeah, and they came home and they never did this, but they said Kids.

Written by William Goldman, the man who taught us nobody knows anything.

And it's based on Donald Westlake who Donald?

Yeah, miss what a pedigree, right, Peter Yates these two.

Oh, the cast is impeccable.

It's just the kind of comedy that they.

Don't make, no, not anymore.

No, they're not interested anymore.

But you know, I wish this was.

This was the meat and potatoes of movies that we would go every week, you could go see something decent, something good, Phil.

Why why has that changed?

Why do they think?

They ask you, well, why do you think the public is different now that all they want are sequels and all of this and you know, stuff that they already know that they've seen before regurgitated and not do originals like what we're talking about, one battle after another and stuff like that.

I mean, Paul Thomas Anderson has gone his whole career and never made a sequel to anything he did.

There will be blood, there was no there will be more and more and more.

What a great movie.

Yeah, but you know, thanks as good as that this new one.

This movie in its own way, you know, I mean, this is a much lighter kind of thing.

This is the action movie he's wanted to make forever.

And because I'm.

Hearing certain words like did Spielberg say it was insane or something?

Is it is it some what indecipherable?

Or is it is it clear?

It's it's clear.

It's actually very easy to follow.

It's about revolutionaries.

And then it sort of cuts to sixteen years later and they're all kind of washed up and Leo's all.

Right, but tell us instead another Redford movie that's important to you in one of your favorites.

Well, I just mentioned it in Guessing nineteen seventy two.

I loved.

The candidate was Bill McKay, you know the character he played, and it was just so smart and funny.

So when you said comedy, I always thought of the candidate.

It's a very sharp comedy.

Actually, it won the Oscar for Original Screenplay.

I know Michael Richie directed who wrote it.

He directed its Jeremy Anyway.

It's a guy that worked in political campaign.

Our friend Peter Boyle was in it.

Ah, yes he was.

He was great too.

Is that before or after Joe?

After Joe?

Yeah?

And Don Porter played the candidate running again him the very Republican kind of thing, except this is a guy, a son of a governor, kind of like Jerry Brown, who's like, you know what, and what's he going to do with his life?

And then suddenly he just runs and it takes off and he becomes very hot, and all of a sudden there's that great ending spoiler alert, you know, fifty years later, what do we do now?

By the way, I think about that ending, and that's one of the most chilling I remember thinking, that's as chilling as politics could be, that someone could be sort of feel like an empty vessel.

In retrospect, I wish we had that candidate in an office.

And then not to jump ahead, but in all the President's men, Yes, it was the heaviest remember the music.

Oh yeah, and like David Schier did that, the world.

Depended on this thing.

I won't after the present.

And now look how tiny that infraction is.

Now it's twelve of those a day.

It's like unbelievable.

Now now it's like you couldn't write this stuff.

If you tried, you would have been thrown out.

You know, they say this would never happen.

Yes, it's very interesting if you think about the endings we're talking about.

Just start, we didn't plan this, but Butch Cassidy's ending, which in retrospect is like, oh yeah, that's where the Sopranos ending came from it.

How do you that freeze free friend?

The Redford sort of know the.

But Cassidy is much clearer than the Sopranos ending.

Yeah, you know what happened, and we also knew, yeah historically right, well, you know the average.

Movie historically to Live I don't know remember.

Yeah, but the candidate always I remember seeing it.

It's a bruin Westwood standing in a line, you know when there used to be lines and you didn't have reserve seats and you just tried to get in.

And it was just such a a great movie.

And there was a cameo in it where McKay meets Natalie Wood as Natalie Wood.

That was interesting to me because Natalie Wood was partially responsible for Robert Redford's career.

She put him she was the big star.

She put him in Inside Daisy Clover in nineteen sixty five playing a bisexual movie star when she was on the lot there in the movie Daisy was And then the next year in This Property Is Condemned again, he played her lover.

There.

They were close friends, and it was Natalie Wood the big star, and then Redford under it.

And when you're talking about what's the first time I ever saw Redford, it was at the Pantageous Theater here in Hollywood, Inside Daisy Clover.

Wow, And you know it was a Natalie Wood movie.

Nobody's mentioning that in these Yeah, but what about Barefoot the Park, which I love our friend Jane Jane Fonda, you know, can do no wrong.

He played that on Broadway.

They are together the way she did the podcast two episodes that I recommend go back to.

And you know, she talks about a lot of her co stars, but I read I went to look at her memoir, Yes, and the first thing she says about Redford is just like the first time she met him in because they did a few movies together, and she goes like even she goes, look at the two of us, some version of like they were the most It's literally the most adorable, beautiful couple in question film history.

But you know it started even earlier than Barefoot.

She part a movie called Tall Story in nineteen sixty, Jane Fonda's film debut.

Redford was actually on the Broadway production in a very small role of Tall Story.

She wasn't He played the same small role in the movie.

If you watch that movie, it's Anthony Perkins is the star with her, but he's in it.

And that was that was the earliest kind of film role for him.

And it was Jane Fonda and then from there they did you know the Chase with Marlon Brando where he played the bubba running away from the thing.

And then I Love Barefoot in the Park's first of all, it's brilliantly written by Neil Simon and he played it on Broadway, so he knew that role of Paul.

They kind of stuffed up new husband and plays a guy having a cold better than anybody.

Listen, it was perfect.

Gotta make him believe it.

He was great.

It was great.

He was just great.

The thing that they both have and that newman had too.

These great movie stars, they're not just good looking people.

There's an intelligence, right, No one's a bimbo.

No, these are bright people, like.

Brighter than any of us.

Yeah again every way, Yeah, so smart, And I loved that comes through.

I love that in that movie.

The other thing I loved about that movie It got one Oscar nomination, and that was for Mildred Natwick as the mother, whose whole bit was climbing those stairs.

Yes, great, it's so funny.

You have Neil Simon, I mean you don't.

You don't hear his name as much as you should.

For the most prolific and most successful playwright of all time.

I bet kids don't know they never heard of him, which is he was my whole life.

He was he was.

I mean I did his plays in high school.

I couldn't he was such an influence.

Did you get to meet him, because I know you got to know a lot of Yes.

We went to we went to lunch and dinners.

He was married to Elaine Joyce towards the end.

Uh.

He's exactly like his reputation, very quiet, but when he spoke, it was funny.

You want to hear a little.

Please.

It's my encounter with Neil Simon, very brief.

I was at the grill with our friend Army Archer and Selma Archer.

This was towards the end of Army's life, and you know, he was sort of like taking his soup like this and all of that.

But Neil Simon was over at another table there and Selma goes, who's that woman?

What's her name?

And I go, it's Elaine Joyce, that's his wife.

And she goes, oh, you know, he probably won't even come by to say hello to Army because we were literally sort of across.

Well, he did.

He came by and Army lit up, just lit up and said, Neil, how's it going?

And then he started doing his Army archer thing, what are you up to?

Well, I'm going to revive Promises Promises on Broadway, and I'm hoping to get this Zoe Deschanel he talked about at the time, and he talked about, you know, doing that and a couple of other things.

The next day, Army called me and so, do you remember that conversation everything he said?

Do you remember?

I said, I actually do.

It's kind of cool, and can you write it up for me and send it to me?

Because at that time, Army's column was only online and he did you know these little items towards the end.

And was that the revival with Harry Connick.

No, it was Sean, Sean Hayes and Kristin Chenowith.

It wound up being yeah, And anyway, I wrote it.

I sent it to Army.

Uh.

He got it up online on Variety and it was the last item he ever had with Neil Simon.

He died a month later.

But it was like to watch him light up when Neil Simon comes in.

You know, Simon.

Did Redford ever work with him again?

No?

I don't think so.

No, there's a.

There's a great story going around that I wouldn't have seen had mister Redford not passed.

Mike Nichols tells a story of Redford really wanted to play Benjamin in The Graduate Graduate.

Yeah, and he you know, they screen tested and they met and he was like, really he really wanted and Nichols said, I'm sorry, you can't.

No one will believe you as a loser, you know.

And he says, but but I can do.

He goes, I'm sorry, let me ask you something.

Did you ever strike out with a girl?

And Redford goes, what do you mean?

And he was serious.

Funny.

That's a great story.

I think Nichols.

By the way, the studio wanted Redford Hawkman barely.

But god, could you imagine though it would have?

I can't.

It's hard for me to imagine anybody in that movie other than Dustin Hoffman.

Now, but I think Redford was offered by Nichols in his first film, A Virginia Wolf to George siegeal role and turned it down for whatever reason.

And yeah, so.

Well, well, talking about Dustin Hoffman, I will go to my next movie being I'll steal it.

I'm sure all of our but I think when we did our favorite movies, I think it might.

I think it's my favorite movie of all times?

Is it really?

I think you like, I think you were always like.

I think your Jaws more than this one.

But All the President's Men was just I think it's just in terms of a movie I can't turn off.

And I don't think it's everyone's favorite in terms of the Redford movies, but I think it's brilliant, and part of it is the two of them just as a dynamic.

It feels like that, Yeah, you have this movie star of the past the movies.

In terms of being the good looking guy.

You have Dustin Hoffman at his best.

And I also just the movie was just so inspiring.

I was I didn't know anything about politics.

I probably learned everything I ever knew about politics.

I learned in All the Presidents.

The direction is great, the cool is great, and there's a fame miss scene.

It's one shot of Redford just on the phone in the in the office, oh yeah, and digging, and this is what a reporter does.

Yeah, that's the name of that scene.

This is what a reporter.

This is what an investigative reporter does.

And to dramatize that.

And static shot of it was and he is so absolutely magnetic you cannot look away.

You're not bored for one second.

And it's a guy on the phone.

I know, right, And that's you know, I think of Liza Minelli and Sterill Cuckoo had a whole scene like that where it's just on the phone and on the face, and those scenes.

Man, you know, that's you've got to be a great actor to pull that off.

This is pre MTV.

Before MTV they would let a shot rest.

The world that we're in is no shot can last more than two and a half seconds, yeah, and so it's cut, cut, cut, And I always call it the illusion of entertainment.

Yeah, so many flashy things are going by your face that you think at the end of whatever that you've been entertained.

Yeah, But to me, no.

When you get in, when you get sucked in by content.

Yeah, yeah, that's when time flies.

Yeah.

You know, I just say thank God for these individual filmmakers who insist, you know, and can still insist, Chris Nolan, Spielberg, others that are still with us, still making movies, because otherwise it would be all done by a committee of whatever they want, and you wouldn't be able to have that kind of individualism what you're talking about and saying, well, this is my movie and I'm going to do it this way, and the audience will go with me.

Trust me, you trust the audience.

The audience.

I mean, you were asking me why it's not the way it was in the seventies anymore, where we went to the movies every week, sometimes multiple times a week, because there was so much there.

You gotta blame the internet and streaming.

Oh yeah, because people have way more choices, way too much.

I mean forget.

I mean they used to say TV was going to kill the movies, but it didn't know.

Well, speaking of what you're saying, I last night another my son also pointed me to a movie I watched the first half of them, going to watch the second half of sometime this before the forty eight hours when my rental runs out.

But I always thought that his last movie might have been whatever the superhero movie the h he was in made.

Oh yeah, well that was Avengers and the Winter Soldier.

But my son said, have you seen the Old Man, Old.

Man and a gun with a gun when he was tired?

That's his final acting performance.

And he's still great.

I'm so glad I watched it.

It was good.

But he was playing a bank robber, which was perfect.

It was a perfect bookend, yes, for his career.

You know, if you were thinking of him as a con man or as a robber, or you know, and Butch Casside or The Sting and all of that, here's the perfect thing.

An old guy, old man in the gun.

Yeah.

I want to.

I want to live in the world where those where him and Newman are still the guys.

Well, live in that world.

But eventually we'll all get.

With it, get there.

But I mean, I mean just that you could go and watch and I guess what's great, it's what legacy is.

They're there.

They are there, and you can visit them and you can live in that world as you know, you put on Butch Cassidy or this Sting or any of their individual movies.

Obviously, you know, the movies make you immortal, and you can go back and you know that.

What's interesting is Newman Redford again, the movie the Verdict that Paul Newman did, the brilliant Sidney Lumette movie.

Originally I was offered to Robert Redford and Robert Redford.

You know, from what I heard, like thought, I don't know if I want to play this down and out drunk guy Frank Alvin or what the character's name was, you know, and sort of was probably thinking more of his image than Newman, who jumped at it and got the role and one of his many Oscar nominations.

But started out Newman as a character actor.

He was, you know, somebody up there likes me all these things that he did.

Do you think are you saying that Redford was maybe a little too vain.

At the time?

That was sort of the story.

I mean, looking back, listen, we know, we know Newman did the greatest job as that character and was, but I could see Redford doing it.

Yeah, well, I don't think we I don't think it's the issue that Redford could have done it.

I think it's that Redford thought, what about my image here?

So I know that's interesting.

I'm surprised by that.

Just again, I watched a bunch of interviews, and Redford I think was a more reticent in general.

Just yeah, I think he just did less.

I think because especially.

Also he wasn't as old as Newman.

No, No, he was.

He was younger, so it.

Is better having the age for that character as well.

Yeah, exactly.

And Newman was you know again, it's like you see Newman in that role and you say it's made for him.

This is James Mason should have gotten that Oscar.

He was so good, so good.

That's a perfect movie.

I think it is.

I've watched it again recently.

It's riveting.

And Sidney Lumett, you know, that's another conversation.

But Lumett was just the brilliant, brilliant director.

But if we were to pick the best of Redford, the best, if we were to pick his best acting role, let's say acting, and then let's pick a movie.

Well, would you say, okay, acting is an interesting case here because there's a lot that's similar.

It doesn't say acting to me that it was going to be that.

So Jeremiah Johnson is an interesting movie because he let himself go there, you know, and it's always good.

Like the rock of Dwayne Johnson's doing right now, it's a smashing machine, you know, Like.

Did you see that?

I missed it in uh Toronto, but I know I've seen the trailers.

I didn't see.

It's a transformation Jeremiah Johnson was fun to see.

I don't think it's his best acting role, you know, I I don't think the sting was Three Days of the Contra.

It's a movie.

We didn't mention it.

I know I loved that and I thought he was it's on your list.

Oh my god, you got to see it.

It's one of the on.

My list of the best.

By the way, I'm all in on seventies paranoid.

We're not seeing that en lists coming out now.

Nobody's mentioned I look at that.

I just not.

I looked at it not long ago.

Buddy watched that movie Fade Unaway, Robert Redford who directed it.

It was.

Great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was great.

It was Sydney Bollock.

Well that's the fantastic.

It's the thing is it's Sydney Pollack directing it like an Alan Pacoula movie.

Well, yeah, it's interesting, like these were Sydney a lot Sidney Pollack, and he had some of their biggest some of his biggest movies.

I'll tell you I have a theory on Oh.

I actually just thought of performance for me, which is rather late in the game.

Lost.

I knew you were going to say that right when you said it, so we both said it.

But I was thinking I didn't turn the page of the list of movies here.

But this is a late Redford.

He didn't get nominated, but he won the New York Film Critics and it's a movie almost with no dial fifty five words.

I think is the only actor in.

It, and you chose what an actor he is.

So I'll go with that one, right with you?

That was good?

That was good.

He's great, really good choice.

Yeah, there's some much with Redford here.

The way we were, you know, is just.

That is my wife's number one, which I left off the list.

But yes, well the scene where Barbara just puts her hand against his face is like, you know, makes him swoon like nothing in it.

Again, it didn't need dialogue.

It was just I.

Feel like every Jewish girl wants to do that.

By the way, it's actually an amazing There's not that many movies that are like have a serious sort of tone about male beauty.

Like that's the movie that played to like who Redford?

Oh, like he had to grapple with that, I think in his career, well, I think, and he eventually, you know, moved way past it.

Way past it.

But that movie I think captured a little of like what people project on people who looked like.

Robert red exactly.

And you know, it was just such a smash hit, and they always wanted to talked about doing a sequel to that, never did it, but I'm glad.

You know, something should be left alone, you know.

Yes, I have a theory about Indecent Proposal.

Yeah, uh, Woody Harrelson makes the deal because secretly he wants to sleep with Robert.

I think we all do.

That's very funny.

Yeah, I like that movie.

The critics pounced all over Indecent Proposal, but I thought it was an intriguing movie, and I thought it was a good choice for Redford to do it.

It was fun.

You know.

I think it's a fantasy on every level that you know the woman.

Yeah, I'll take that deal.

I'll take that money, and you know that whole thing.

What's he going to do to the marriage.

With anyone appealing than him, like as an older man, it would be.

Is too much?

Yeah, but you forgive it because it would be Carrie Grant if he was you know, it'd be somebody who's like untouchable.

In a weird way, and you know, like, whoa this.

Is, Like, that's not a great movie.

It's not a great movie.

It's a great guilty pleasure.

Yes, that's that's good.

That's good.

Yeah.

But I'm gonna pick for both performance and movie.

I'm going to pick all the President's men.

Yeah.

Well, and we should pick one that he directed.

And I think we all would agree.

On ordinary People for what you want an Oscar, although I loved quiz Show that he was and got nominated for that.

Written by Paul Nassi, who I grew up with in tenflying Oh yeah, yeah.

He he wrote for my school paper ahead of me and so and I was the head of the radio station with paut Nascio, who I think that's a great movie.

Yeah, and you know, don't discount the Malagro Beanfield War about those citizens of Malagro, New Mexico who are being screwed over by the government, you know, immigrants here.

This movie, if you revisit it very timely, yes.

Ordinary people, have you gone back?

I don't think I've gone back and watched it and it's powerful, but I thought it was amazing.

Yeah, it's powerful.

Mary Tyler Moore, if it wasn't for Sissy's basic singing her own songs as Loretta Lynn and coal Miner's daughter.

That year, Mary Tyler Moore would have had an oscar.

I mean, I feel like you're singing into her soul.

Oh my god.

It was such a It was a shocking performance for people who you know, knew her, and so uncomfortable.

Yeah, so uncomfortable.

I mean you're talking about your mother, your dead brother, you've got Oh my god, it's so horrible.

I don't want to see it again.

Really, it's it.

It is too much.

Yeah, did you ever get to I worked with her on the Emmys.

I think one of her last amans is Mary.

Did you ever get to know Mary?

No?

But she called me.

Oh season the first season of Raymond.

I got two really nice calls.

That's a call in the in the writer's room.

Oh wow.

One was Norman.

Ah, that is huge.

Is that how you became friends?

Yes?

Yeah, because Norman one of the movie nights.

I was here, Norman Lear was here, and Jim Brooks.

I mean it was I know, I know, I have I have this woe kind of life where I go was but but the phone rings?

Yes, Mary Talla Morris online one what I mean, to me, I love Norman's shows.

I mean All the Family is one of the most influential.

But to me, I think the perfect sitcom was Mary Tallamore show like that.

That the peak in terms of comedy and and ensemble writing and directing.

Okay, so to have her call and here's how she here's how she answered.

I said hello, and she went, Phil, it's Mary.

That's all she had to say.

I I could die.

Wow.

Yeah.

And we spoke for a while and she was just the loveliest sweet That's so cool, I know, I know.

And then I got to be pretty good friends with Valerie Harper.

Yeah, she was great and and I think more accessible as a person.

And and you know, she told me that Mary had that side of her that you saw in ordinary people.

This kind of walled off a little bit from from a real emotion and real feelings maybe, but Redford was able to uncover this and show that unbelievable, heartbreaking vulnerability in her.

Yeah, that was that you never saw before.

Unbelievable performance.

I think he's a lar brilliant director.

Really get that out of someone, to get it out of anyone, let alone someone who is known for the opposite exactly.

I was.

I really think she should have won, but Sissy's basic was unbeatable that year.

But but he won.

Yeah, he won in the picture.

Will tell them who he beat?

Well, he beat Marty Scorsese for Raging Bull.

How about that?

I know.

I mean, if you talk about Raging Bull at all, Yeah, it is the direction of Raging Bull.

The changed movies.

Oh, it's amazing, you know, and people are arguing about that to this day.

But I think it's a disservice to Robert Redford what.

He did with Ordinary People, because if we're gonna put the two movies side by side as great movies, I think the greatness of Raging Bull is all in the direction of the camera.

Yeah, the movie itself, if you watch it today, you go, what am I watching?

Right?

This is a one note movie, right, This is He's ugly at the beginning, he's ugly throughout, he ends ugly.

Yeah, life is ugly.

Is not at the.

Point of the movie that life is brutal and ugly and your face is thrown in.

But at the time, we never saw the camera move like that.

We never saw anything.

However, black and white, ordinary people.

This is a movie about the most important things in life.

Yeah, and death and this.

Yeah, I mean Timothy Hutton also won an Oscar for that so good.

By the way, that was my college paper, the head of You probably knew him Stanley and Sherry Lansing and Stanley Stanley Jeffy Jaffe, who were running twentieth Century I guess back then, is that right?

She was?

And then they you know, they produced together, they did Fatal Attraction and a bunch of stuff.

For whatever reason, my college paper or the Coronell Deli Sun, I got a call saying, we like your reviews.

We're inviting you to a college press junket in LA.

My first trip, I think to law and I was interviewing actors, the stars of I guess it was, Oh, it was Taps, so Timothy Hutton for Taps, not ornary people.

It was one of the sort of follow ups.

Yeah, but that was my first trip to LA and I talked about Timothy Hutton, who people forget maybe how.

Great and Timothy was the star of that movie.

And Tom Cruise had a very small role, a young Tom Cruise in Taps and things.

You mentioned Mary Tyler Moore because I got to intern through the Television Academy when I was in college at MTM Enterprises and the second season of new Heart's Show Bob Newhart, and I was able to go to Mary Tyler Moore show too.

That was all part of it.

It was some film all summer, all summer I was, you know, it was just amazing kind of thing.

Decades later, I was asked to moderate the birthday tribute by the Television Academy to Betty White and they had a reunion of all the Mary Tyler Moore casts.

They were all there except Ted Knight, who had died, every single one of them.

Then they're all dead now, but I remember that night coming on stage.

They were so happy.

Was it was an amazing thing to be able to witness and to to do.

You know.

Golden Age, Golden Age.

The seventies, seventies, talking about it for TV, movies and music, just the culture.

We're so rich, so much stuff, and you know, and it's like, yeah, I mean it is a golden age now.

Yeah, people look back on it all.

It's long enough ago.

But I mean, listen, there's always been crap.

Yeah, right, there's always, but there's there's so much yeah now, because there's so much everything now.

Yeah, right, so there's a lot of good stuff too.

I don't want to make it seem like that was, but there should be room.

Since there is everything, there should be room for some high quality stuff.

It shouldn't just be you know this one movie that you're talking about this week.

Right, No, that that that's it, and I think it's the theatrical is very important to keep alive because you remember where you saw these movies.

You remember seeing I'm in a theater.

What do you do with a streaming movie?

What do you remember?

Remember where I was on the couch.

I remember when we took the bathroom break.

And we're talking about the communal experience.

Communal experiences.

If you lose that, you lose your literal connection to other human beings.

When we experience things together, we are closer.

It's just a fact.

I know.

So we yearned for this, us old timers.

Yeah, the only we do, the only exception.

I completely endorse that.

But I will say with Redford, maybe my first chronological memory was sometime in the seventies.

I don't know, I think I've told you this, but Twilight Zone, when I was like, I don't know, nine ten was my obsession, and my dad tells us told the story.

He's no longer run, but he told me stories that he would find me in the living room at eleven o'clock after I'd gone to bed, like two hours earlier.

He'd find me in the living room playing very quietly Twilight Zone.

And I still to this day remember sitting in that childhood living room watching the episode that Robert Redford did called Nothing in the Dark where he played death And if you go back to watch it, which I recommend, it was perfect because, like, especially in light of him passing now, it's a beautiful sort of statement that holds up where it's it's the least scary version of death.

I kind of watched that perfect show.

Perfect show.

It's still a perfect show.

Play of ideas.

Really, that's really what it is.

It's just brilliant.

I can watch that over and over and over and over and over.

Is there anything but before we go, anything we want to say about Robert Redford that hasn't been said?

A lot's been said, and it's a tribute to him.

You see all these appreciations and people, you know, take people for granted until they're not here, and then they go like Wow, look at that life.

Look what he did and and what you said before the Sundance Film Institute, not just the Sundance Film Festival, the Sundance Film Institute literal support of the arts, as support of the arts.

That all of that has done changed the industry, you know, an independent film beyond.

He rightly got an honorary Oscar for that.

Yes, too, And that is a huge part of what Redford was, his concern about the environment and everything.

You know, every time we lose a voice like that, it's like, wow, it's one I know, yeah it is, but.

Well, we love you and I hope you come more often, not just when great people die.

Yes, I know, no, it's a but.

There's no one better to have than you.

Yeah, I was going to come when we were going to do someone else who was still alive.

Yes, but yeah, so, but I'm glad we could talk about Robert Redford.

I'm glad I could do it here because I didn't get a chance to do it for a deadline.

I was running around and we had Peter Bart do his.

He's great remembrance.

He knew him, so of course.

Yeah.

And it's actually as sad as it is to see him go.

I actually like that like a new generation.

It seems like in a weird way because he didn't play the press game media game.

By now, no one knew this was coming, you know, it didn't We didn't know.

And so but as a result, I do feel like my kids, our kids are probably going to rediscover some of these movies.

And that's beauty.

That's a great thing because.

There I would do a plug for something you're involved with right now, the American Cinema Tech because they always when somebody like that dice, they will go and do a retrospective, do it in their theaters and they are packed.

They sell out right away.

And it's a younger audio.

It really is so.

And yes, and by the way, support their good work this year with the help of your wife.

Honoring Michael B.

Jordan, who is another just one of the great actors right.

Now right now, Yeah, still happening.

All right, Well, this is fun anytime.

Thank you man, having everybody thank you, that's great.

Naked Lunch is a podcast by Phil Rosenthal and David Wilde.

Theme song and music by Brad Paisley, produced by Will Sterling and Ryan Tillotson, with video editing by Daniel Ferrara and motion graphics by Ali Ahmed.

Executive produced by Phil Rosenthal, David Wilde, and our consulting journalist is Pamela Chellan.

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You know, thanks for listening to Naked Lunch, a Lucky Bastard's production.

Phil Rosenthal, Hello, Pete Hammond.

Hi, Why should people tune into Naked Lunch this week?

This is a special week because we are celebrating a great American icon named Robert Redford.

And I can think of no one better to help us than the great Pete Hammond.

Well, I'm honored first of all to be here to talk about I love doing this and you know, and Phil is just an amazing person.

And I'm come into his house.

When I come in here and look at all these posters and things, and I go like, oh my god, I don't have that one.

I got to go get it.

Take whatever you're.

Like, And as usual, I'm here representing the ordinary people in Robert's Redford's honor.

Ah okay,