Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Mini Ep #122: Producer of the Month: Disaster Movies of the 1970s

Episode Date: July 27, 2017

This week: "The Glass Inferno"! Remembering George Romero and Martin Landau! Charo boards the Concorde! And Gilbert sings "The Morning After"! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adch...oices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This episode is brought to you by the Kraken Gold Spiced Rum. The Kraken presents The Legend of Gold Spiced Rum Plundered from the darkest depths of the Kraken's keep. Savored for its rich, smooth taste with hints of Tahitian vanilla and dark spices. Discover the Kraken's newest treasure. The Kraken Gold Spiced Rum.
Starting point is 00:00:27 Please drink responsibly. Introducing TD Insurance for Business with customized coverage options for your business. Because at TD Insurance, we understand that your business is unique, so your business insurance should be too. Contact a licensed TD Insurance advisor to learn more. Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried, and I'm here with my co-host, Frank Ferdinand. And that engineer, Santo Padre, does a great job. Yes, our engineer, Frank Santo Padre. It all runs together after a while. And yeah, and I think it's Peanut Butter Cove that we're recording at. And this is Gilbert and Frank's amazing, colossal obsession. It is.
Starting point is 00:01:38 What the hell is Peanut Butter Cove? That's what Nutmeg changed their name to. Oh, I see. You did a kind of like a you did a bizarro version. I think it's where the plane crashed in the airport. Paul Rayburn is here too.
Starting point is 00:01:53 Yes, yes. That's why if the show starts dragging we have an excuse. Good research takes time. Yes. Now, do we have time to mention two people we lost yes please do in one night yes in one night they may have died days apart you don't know yeah but we we uh never had either one of them on our show they were on the list yeah they definitely were. One of them, I mean, I remember years ago, like maybe in the early 70s,
Starting point is 00:02:29 there was word going around that the Waverly Theater in New York's Greenwich Village was having a midnight showing every night of a movie called Night of the Living Dead. And me and my sister, Arlene, went there, and it was standing room only. And lucky enough, in the middle of the picture, two people left. And that was like, so anybody who watches the 9 million TV series about undead and people who eat flesh and then they turn in, the victims turn into undead and are lumbering around. It's big business now, zombies. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:03:12 And it's like you owe a debt of thanks to George Romero. Yeah. Well, you know, the great thing about that movie, every time I see it or think about it, is that the zombies moved way too slowly. You would think to ever catch anyone. It's a little like the mummy. Right. So like we made about the mummy. Like it's, you just walk away and, but there's something relentless about it.
Starting point is 00:03:36 And you know, the truck blows up. I mean, no matter what people try to do to get away, even though it looks like it should be easy, they can't get away. And there was something about the low budget uh feel to that movie yeah that made it real yeah yeah yeah like sort of carnival of souls yes another movie that feels that way yeah it has that white low budget yeah kind of eerie yeah gives you the creeps and it's you know, it's not like cheap jump scares and stuff. It's real terror.
Starting point is 00:04:07 No. Yeah, it just keeps you at the edge of your seat for the whole movie. Yeah. And then he made Dawn of the Dead. Yeah. That had the chills of the first one, but it was also funny. Right. Like a sick kind of humor.
Starting point is 00:04:24 Like zombies getting their heads sliced off by helicopter rotors. Oh, yes. Yes. And that it took place in a shopping mall. Right. And when you see the zombies on the escalators and they look just like. Well, that one's a satire. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:04:42 Yeah. Well, then there was filmmaker. Sean of the Dead was the takeoff on the takeoff. I think he cut his teeth. I think he worked for Mr. Rogers in Pittsburgh, George Romero. Oh, that makes sense. Pittsburgh. Yeah, I think he did.
Starting point is 00:04:56 How does that make sense? Because they're Pittsburgh and they're both Pittsburgh boys. They're both Pittsburgh guys. They're not both zombie guys. That's what put Pittsburgh on the map were those living dead people. Michael Keaton, too, was another guy from Pittsburgh who worked on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood. Oh. Yeah, George Romero.
Starting point is 00:05:13 He was great. I tell you, these guys are irreplaceable. Him, Martin Landau. Yeah, Martin Landau. They don't make them like this anymore. I was so looking. He's the other one. We were so looking forward to talking to him.
Starting point is 00:05:25 We were trying hard, and we thought we were getting closer. He had just done Marin's podcast. I think he'd done another one. I'm trying to remember whose it was. Robert Wool's. Robert Wool, his friend from Mistress. He did Robert's podcast. And Dick Gutman was helping us, and it was a timing thing.
Starting point is 00:05:43 And then he passed. We just weren't able to close the deal, which was a heartbreaker. And I think he wanted to wait until he was promoting something or one of those things. I don't know what it was, but he – I would have loved to have talked to him. We were trying so hard. And so, you know, those – it's a kick in the teeth when you lose somebody like that that you think you're getting on the show. It's a kick in the teeth when you lose somebody like that that you think you're getting on the show. I forget the guy's name, but one guy tweeted me and said, rest in peace, Oscar-winning Jew, Martin Landau. Martin Landau, one of those careers where, you know, he was a showbiz survivor.
Starting point is 00:06:21 He was a showbiz survivor. I mean, because he went from the bottom, the part of his career where things were real dark, when he was playing the mad scientist on the Harlem Globetrotters' Visit Gilligan's Island. And within a couple of years, he's in a Coppola picture. He's in Tucker, the Man and His Dream, and then he Crimes and Misdemeanors, and he worked his way back up. Yes. That's the nature of the vicissitudes of the business. But he worked his way back up to, and then he crimes and misdemeanors and he worked his way back up. That's the nature of the vicissitudes of the business. But he worked his way back up to
Starting point is 00:06:47 and then he wins an Oscar for Lugosi. But he was a guy that was on hard times for a good while. You know, winning an Oscar and having you take Bela Lugosi seriously is a tough thing because you don't want to come across as a nightclub comic
Starting point is 00:07:03 doing Lugosi. And for him to make that believable. And credit to Scott and Larry who wrote him the part of a lifetime there in Ed Wood. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. He was great. And, you know, another Brooklyn guy, another Brooklyn boy. Oh, that's right.
Starting point is 00:07:19 Yeah. And I heard, you know, well, he once worked with Alfred Hitchcock. Sure, sure. And he said Hitchcock had seen him in something else that was like a musical or something or a comedy. And he says, he asked Hitchcock, he goes, well, what made you think of casting me as the villain? And Hitchcock said something like, you look like you have a circus going on in your head. Interesting. He was a commercial artist for a while.
Starting point is 00:07:52 He had a great face. Yes. He had a great face. And great range. Here's what we're going to do. We have this thing called Producer of the Month on Patreon where basically fans and listeners can suggest a show, and if we pick the idea,
Starting point is 00:08:10 we just name that person Producer of the Month, and we do the show. Yeah. So we're going to try this. We haven't done it. It's actually something new on Patreon. This is one of the great honors in show business. One of the great honors in show business?
Starting point is 00:08:22 Oh, the people are talking. Really? Yeah, yeah. Where did you read this? Oh, where didn't I. Really? Yeah, yeah. Where did you read this? In street news? Where didn't I see it? The paper they used to, the homeless people used to sell on the D train? Yikes. A gentleman
Starting point is 00:08:33 named Eric Rhein, who is a big fan of this show, R-H-E-I-N, suggested, he's the producer of the month for June. We're a month late because this is running in July, but then we didn't put it up until recently. He's suggesting that we do a show about 70s disaster
Starting point is 00:08:50 movies, and I thought that's right up Gilbert's alley. Oh, yeah. And we had talked about Irwin Allen on a previous show, but some of these are not Irwin Allen movies. He was the master of disaster. Yeah. And we did a mini episode about Irwin Allen, but I thought, well, that's kind of a fun idea that we could play with.
Starting point is 00:09:07 And I thought I'd throw some of these out at you. And Paul, feel free to listen in. I'll do some research when I consider it appropriate. Yes. Yes. And you'll come back to us in a year when you have the answer. The producer of the month a year from now will find out. Get started on the 80s disaster movies.
Starting point is 00:09:25 So here we go, Gil. I think this kind of this genre, if you will, started or subgenre, started with Airport in 1970. Oh, that's right. Was that Dean Martin? Dean Martin and Burt Lancaster and Van Heflin in his last part. Oh, and was Jacqueline Bissett the stewardess? She sure as hell is. And she comes back because she's in horror movies later.
Starting point is 00:09:51 Yeah, and she's in The Day the World Ended. That's right, when time ran out. Yeah, time ran out. The Day the World Ended was the name of the script. It was the name of the movie in development before they changed it. And Helen Hayes won an Oscar for Airport in 1970. Did you know that? No. The airport was nominated. And Helen Hayes won an Oscar for Airport in 1970. Did you know that?
Starting point is 00:10:06 No. The Airport was nominated. So we think about this now as kind of like pop junk that's kind of fun. Yeah, sure. The Airport was nominated for 10 Academy Awards. I know. So the Towering Inferno was nominated for Best Picture. It's incredible. Can you imagine that today?
Starting point is 00:10:20 Yeah. Like a cheeseball disaster movie being nominated for Best Picture. It's so ridiculous. Yeah. Like a cheeseball disaster movie. It's so ridiculous. Yeah. And there's still this building in L.A. that's not that big a building, but I think it was used as the towering inferno. Yes, we'll get to that. Yeah. But this I found out in doing my research, that the writer of Airport, the original Airport in 70, was a gentleman named George Seaton, S-E-A-T-O-N, who made one of my favorite movies,
Starting point is 00:10:45 Miracle on 34th Street. So how do you get from Miracle on 34th Street to Airport? Again, the strange twists and turns of a career. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast after this. That's the sound of fried chicken with a spicy history. Thornton Prince was a ladies' man. To get revenge, his girlfriend hid spices in his fried chicken. He loved it so much, he opened Prince's Hot Chicken. This is one of many sounds in Tennessee with a story to tell. To hear them in person, plan your trip at tnvacation.com. Tennessee sounds perfect. Pandora, be love. What does be love mean to you?
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Starting point is 00:11:57 And now back to the show. It is, somebody described it as Grand Hotel on a plane, and that's pretty much what it is. Those were the formulas for these things. Put a bunch of stars in them and put them in peril. And that's where, oh, was she the one that gets smacked a bunch of times on the plane? Helen Hayes? You mean what they spoofed in airplanes?
Starting point is 00:12:20 Helen Hayes. She's a stowaway. Yeah. Helen Hayes, I think in airplane, gets smacked a couple of times in the original one. And the Zuckers parodied that in airplane? Because I think they smack her as a diversion
Starting point is 00:12:37 because some guy's trying to hijack the plane or blow it up. And she starts yelling. And it's so much fun to watch helen hayes get smacked you know it's funny because people think the zuckers were parodying the airport movies but that but it's really a parody of a movie called zero hour uh yeah with what's his name um dana andrews dana andrews right and then that spawned Airport 75, which was confusingly released in 1974, which is odd. Yeah, because Zero Hour had everything in it.
Starting point is 00:13:14 Like, I picked the wrong time to give up smoking. Oh, yeah. It's fun to watch it now. And George Zip and all those. That's right. It's fun to watch. But Airport 75 was Charlton Heston, Karen Black. One of the things these disaster movies have always done is getting old stars, faded stars to fill out the. It was kind of like Fantasy Island and Love Boat.
Starting point is 00:13:38 Well, Gloria Swanson's in this one. Helen Hayes was in the first one. I mean, Fred Astaire turns up in The Towering Inferno. That was a bit of a part of the formula. Now, in Towering Inferno, there's a famous football player. OJ's in The Towering Inferno. Yeah, but there's another guy. He's a big, big guy like wide. If we had a researcher here, we could look that up. I'll put out a call and in towering inferno the elevator uh snaps and it's not working so this football player you know grabs the cable
Starting point is 00:14:18 of the elevator casey or uh was it was it a guy with an acting career? Not a big acting career. I think he was white. I think so. He was a football player and he grabs the cable of the elevator and he tugs up an entire elevator of people. I love it. Well, your man Don Gordon is in The Towering Inferno. Oh, my God. Don Gordon. But going back to Airport 75, Helen Reddy is a guitar-strumming nun, which was parodied in Airport. Oh, yes.
Starting point is 00:14:52 And that one is really George Kennedy also, who became a veteran of these pictures. He would pop up in all those. Yeah, yeah. In fact, he's in the first one, too. He's in Airport 70. But these were hits, and they kept spawning sequels. And the next one co-starred a former podcast guest, Airport 77, which is the one where the jetliner ends up on the bottom of the ocean.
Starting point is 00:15:18 Oh, that's right. With? Not with Christopher Lee. You're right, but who played Christopher Lee's wife? Former podcast guest. Lee Grant. in that. But who played Christopher Lee's wife? Former podcast guest? Lee Grant? Nice work. Lee Grant.
Starting point is 00:15:30 And wasn't Jack Lemmon the pilot? Jack Lemmon was the star. And Jimmy Stewart's in it. And keeping with the formula of old time stars, old Hollywood stars from the golden age, Olivia de Havilland and Joseph Cotton. Oh, wow. So, you know, you got Olivia de Havilland and Joseph Cotton. Oh, wow. So, you know, you got Olivia de Havilland in one. You got Helen Hayes in another.
Starting point is 00:15:49 You got Gloria Swanson. They were probably on the phone with their agent saying, get me one of these airport movies. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure all of those old dying actors were going, hey, you got to get me in it. So-and-so was in it. I actually remember liking this movie, but purely as a guilty pleasure.
Starting point is 00:16:08 Yes. Airport 77. I remember liking Jack Lemmon, and it was kind of a different part for him. Yeah, it was kind of fun to see those guys in those different roles. Yeah, and cash and a check. Yeah, that's right.
Starting point is 00:16:19 But the franchise, the nail in the franchise's coffin was Airport 79, The Concord. Oh, that's right. Not only did the movie- Who was in The Concord again? Robert Wagner. Okay.
Starting point is 00:16:34 Charo. You'd think that would have sold it right there. A French actor named Alain Delon, who I believe was in that movie, Mr. Klein, that you liked. Yes, yes. Wow. He was the pilot. And with Charo there, the pilot should have been Merv Griffin.
Starting point is 00:16:59 Paul, what do you got on Airport 79? The Concorde. Not much, but I do know that you may have noticed that the actual airplane, the Concorde, no longer flies. I believe because of the reception to the movie, they finally actually shut down the aircraft altogether. That's why the SST program went away. David Warner's in it. Oh! And George Kennedy.
Starting point is 00:17:21 Of course. Yep. I think George Kennedy's in all of them. I think George Kennedy is Of course. Yep. I think George Kennedy's in all of them. I think George Kennedy is the recurring motif. Okay, now we got to get to the big guns. In 1972, The Poseidon Adventure. Now, here's a movie that we have talked about at length on this show.
Starting point is 00:17:41 With Mario Cantone, with our friend Ira Glass. And Red Buttons. Now, Red Buttons. Ernest Pognine. Yeah. And your friend Stella Stevens who you wanted. Stella Stevens is spending the entire movie in white underwear. And she's climbing up
Starting point is 00:17:57 ladders. People are following her up. The camera is following her up the ladder. And boy oh boy. So much more exciting. Stella Stevens won't do our show, will she? We tried her. We can go back to the well and see what happens. So I have a question for Gilbert.
Starting point is 00:18:13 Go ahead. What was the Academy Award winning song? A Morning After. Oh, he's good. Yeah. Why do we even bother? Why do we try? Who sang it?
Starting point is 00:18:24 Oh, was that Helen Ruddy? No. No, no, that was, oh, God. You can do it. You can get this. She has an alliterative name. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Both letters, same letter, same letter.
Starting point is 00:18:36 Oh, all right, give me the letter then. M, two Ms. Maureen McCormick? No, Maureen McGovern. Maureen McCormick is Marcia from the Brady Batch. Oh, that's right. She would have sung a bitchin' version of The Morning After. Can you do a verse? There's got to
Starting point is 00:18:53 be a morning after if we can hold on through the storm. This is beautiful. And who scored that picture? Somebody who comes up a lot on this show. Uh-oh. Mr. John Williams.
Starting point is 00:19:07 Oh, wow. Are you kidding? Did he write that song? John, I don't know that he wrote the song. You can check that. But John Williams had history with Irwin Allen from Lost in Space. That's right. And Land of the Giants and those other great theme songs that he wrote.
Starting point is 00:19:22 This is the first Irwin Allen movie that we'll talk about, too. Gilbert's got the cast right. Stella Stevens, Red Buttons. I believe, if this isn't bullshit, and I found this in my research, that Gene Wilder was going to play the Red Buttons part. Oh, that would make sense. James Martin was the character's name.
Starting point is 00:19:39 And because Carol Lindley reportedly did not get along with Red Buttons. There was bad blood. So maybe she'd have done better with Gene Wilder. I don't know. So Carol Lindley didn't get along with Red Buttons? Did not get along with Red Buttons. Oh, I want to see a whole TV movie about this.
Starting point is 00:20:00 Behind the Poseidon Adventure. Yeah, just like how they did Joan and Betty right I'd like to see this next episode of Carol and Red a miniseries the next episode of Feud will be Red Buttons and Carol and Red that's too good that's what I found oh that's too good okay another quiz for you I was on a plane once. Yeah. Years ago, I was sitting in between, and I thought I was on a disaster movie waiting to happen. I was sitting in between Carol Lindley and Sylvia Sidney. Oh, my God. Did you talk to them?
Starting point is 00:20:42 No. Why not? No, I don't know. Oh, my God. Did you talk to them? No. Why not? No, I don't know.
Starting point is 00:20:50 But, boy, if that plane blew up, I wouldn't be the least – I wouldn't have been the least surprised. You might have been top-billed in the blurb, in the news day. Or I could have been in brackets and Gilbert Gottfried as Dr. Johnson. You didn't talk to Sylvia Sidney? No. She's in Dead End with Bogart, for Christ's sakes. That's right. You could have learned about Bogie, about your hero. Okay, here's some more Poseidon Adventure trivia before Paul finds it.
Starting point is 00:21:16 What was the tagline on the movie poster? What? What was the tagline on the movie poster? We've talked about those old posters where the stars, all the faces. Oh, that's the tagline. Oh, oh. No, that's the tagline. Oh, oh. No, that was the Joey Ross story.
Starting point is 00:21:30 Oh, for the Poseidon Adventure? Our listeners are screaming it into their devices. Oh, I know. They're getting pissed off. It was hell, upside down. Oh, that's it.
Starting point is 00:21:41 Very good. Yeah. I got the composers for the morning after, but I don't know these guys. Al Kasha and Joel Hirshhorn. Joel Hirshhorn. Joel Hirshhorn, I know.
Starting point is 00:21:51 He's a famous name. And while we're talking about taglines, getting back to George Romero, the tagline for Dawn of the Dead was, when there's no more room in hell, the dead will walk the earth. Correct. Wow. There's no more room in hell. The dead will walk the earth. Correct.
Starting point is 00:22:10 Brilliantly spoofed by Drew Friedman and his brother Josh in their first book. Let's see. What else do we want to say about the Poseidon adventure? You forgot to mention Roddy McDowell. Oh, that's right. Leslie Nielsen in a dramatic role. Oh, yeah. As the captain who looks through the binoculars, sees the tidal wave, and says, oh my god.
Starting point is 00:22:28 Which scared the shit out of me when I was a kid. And Gene Hackman. Gene Hackman, doing good work in cheese. Yes. You know, as always, and the fetching Pamela Sue Martin. Ooh. We could talk about the Poseidon. We could just
Starting point is 00:22:43 do whole shows about the beside it's so funny that with airplane that they used uh leslie nielsen yes and it was like and those beginning satires where they used him he was still the old leslie Nielsen playing it straight. Absolutely. And that's what made it so funny. Absolutely. Also, speaking of Oscars, Shelley Winters nominated for her role. Oh, and she's so famous for jumping into the water and swimming. She gained 35 pounds for the part, and she trained with a swimming coach. She trained, I believe, an Olympic swimming coach.
Starting point is 00:23:22 And I would direct our listeners to Mario Cantone's impression of Shelley Winters in the Poseidon Adventure, which you can find online in clips from Mario's show Laugh Whore. It must be seen to be believed. He's done it here. So there's an interesting bit on Vulture. They asked for the origin of Don't Call Me Shirley and where the show came from. And so what they did was went back to a lot of classic movies of an earlier era and looked for some of this dialogue and then tweaked it. So they had found, I think, a line like, the line was, and I'm not sure, he doesn't remember which movie, Surely You Can't Be Serious was a line from one of the movies they screened and they added and Don't Call Me Surely.
Starting point is 00:24:08 Oh, they must have felt like they'd hit a jackpot. Yeah, exactly. I mean there's a lot of – like in Zero Hour, there's a line that says, stewardess, can you face some unpleasant facts? And she says yes. But this is hard to imagine out of context. They change it to no and apparently got a laugh out of that in the movie. And then the other one was, remember the line from Airplane? It says, we need somebody who can not only fly this plane, but who didn't have fish for dinner.
Starting point is 00:24:35 That was an actual line from a movie. That was the exact line. Hilarious. Didn't you want to cruise with David Zucker? Yes. A while back. We got to get him to do the show. I, of course, didn't ask him to do it.
Starting point is 00:24:45 Nice work. Not like he's had any connection with movies over the years. Don't ask him. It was funny with Airplane. It was based on Zero Hour. But most people
Starting point is 00:25:02 had never heard of Zero Hour. It's an obscure film. And you didn't have to see Zero Hour to laugh. That's right. Whereas these other parodies they make, it's the whole thing is like, oh, dress someone up from that movie. And the fact that we both recognize that it's from that movie, that's good enough. Well, they're too self-conscious. They're imitations of a parody.
Starting point is 00:25:26 Yes. And the filmmakers don't really have the talent that the Zuckers and Jim Abrams. Oh, yeah. You know, at this point, there's also some interesting stuff online here that this was early in their careers, and Paramount was so nervous about the movie,
Starting point is 00:25:43 they negotiated a contract which said they could fire them after one week. And it turned out the first day of shooting was the day they filmed the And Don't Call Me Shirley line, and they showed it to the Paramount execs, and they said, okay, we get it. Oh, it's great. Now we get it. Yeah, it's great. We got to have one of those actors in here. In the beginning, they wanted to load it with comedians. I remember. Oh, really oh really yeah they had a
Starting point is 00:26:06 fight against they had a fight against that it would have ruined yeah and uh now was that the first movie where leslie nielsen yes did comedy that was the one yes yeah i mean he may have been in other comedies but he wasn't known certainly not known right but back then he didn't realize he was getting laughs. Once he realized he was getting laughs in those later movies he did, he was getting a little too goofy. But when you watch The Poseidon Adventure now and he walks in, you start laughing. Oh, of course. Let's talk quickly about The Towering Inferno. And Mr. Zucker, I know I didn't ask you on the boat but if you're listening
Starting point is 00:26:45 which zucker was on the boat was it jerry or david i david i think okay yeah okay we'll take either one and and he was he was talking to me and then uh like about a month later i thought oh he would have been a good person you are on it that's about how long it takes me to find answers to the questions yeah it would have been like charlie chaplin could come up to me and i go oh he did a couple yeah you had a 20-minute conversation with david allen career in the street and never thought to mention that you had a podcast let's let's squeeze in and then we'll save the rest for for another uh episode so erwin Allen, flush from the success of the Poseidon Adventure, decides he has to make another big budget,
Starting point is 00:27:35 throw every kind of star, everything but the kitchen sink, into another disaster movie. So he went to option a book called The Tower, but it was already optioned. So he optioned another book called the glass Inferno. And then Fox and Warner brothers decided to team up. So this was a big deal at the time because it was two studios, right?
Starting point is 00:27:55 Actually joining forces. Um, and that led to the towering Inferno. You were talking about the building that's still there. This was about a fire breaking out on the 81st floor of the 138 story world's tallest building um that was the plot and and that was how many stars can we throw in there and put into peril and set fire to paul newman and steve mcqueen yeah yeah and and i remember a steve mcqueen and a fireman's cap always struck me as funny. Well, according to what I found, and, you know,
Starting point is 00:28:29 sometimes you can't believe what you find on Wikipedia or IMDb, but Steve McQueen was supposedly self-conscious about the way he looked in the fireman's helmet. Yeah. So it's funny that you would pull that out. Oh, he looked ridiculous. William Holden. Oh, that's right. Did you mention Faye Dunaway?
Starting point is 00:28:45 Fred Astaire, Faye Dunaway, Robert Vaughn. Faye Dunaway, that's what, back when she was really hot looking. Yeah, but how they think about it. I mean, we're talking about how movies have changed and how you couldn't get these films nominated for an Oscar today. Oh, my God. It's, yeah. Today, if you made a disaster movie, it would be automatically, it would be relegated to be movie status. You wouldn't get people that were the level of Faye Dunaway
Starting point is 00:29:06 and Paul Newman and Steve McQueen. This would be if they took one of the really low-budget slasher films and it was up for five Academy Awards. And it lured George Clooney and Jennifer Lawrence. Yeah. Paul Newman was the architect. Oh, that's right. Right.
Starting point is 00:29:24 And Richard Chamberlain turns out to be the bad guy in that movie. And in every one of those movies, the bad guy is the one, well, much like the mayor in Jaws. They care about money and not safety. It's a formula. So they have to die a miserable death in the movie. And he does. Yes. Not to give anything away.
Starting point is 00:29:46 Yeah. And they were both written by the same writer, Sterling Siliphant, who was an Oscar winner, who wrote what? Ooh. What did he win an Oscar for writing? Also Lee Grant movie. Well, she's in it. Ooh. It starred one of your favorite actors, Rod Steiger.
Starting point is 00:30:06 Oh, shit. Heat of the Night? Correct. Yes. So here you go. So you're winning an Oscar for writing in the Heat of the Night, and then you're writing The Towering Inferno. That was a big payday.
Starting point is 00:30:18 Well, that was a hot night, too, in the Inferno, if you were on the 83rd floor. OJ is in it. We have to find out the other football player that Gilbert asked about. Yeah, so there's a guy that looks like a football player named Felton Perry. Hey, do you think OJ will get out? Felton Perry, maybe. Felton Perry.
Starting point is 00:30:35 Do you think OJ will get out? No? No, I don't think Felton Perry was a football player. What about OJ? I don't know about OJ. See, when this show airs, we'll already know. That's right. Whether he's walking the street. That's right, tomorrow morning. And we should look behind
Starting point is 00:30:50 us. Did you ever work with OJ? I met him once. Did you lose a part to him? Well, he was originally going to be Iago. I didn't know that. OJ Simpson I met at a party going to be Iago. I didn't know that. O.J. Simpson I met at a party
Starting point is 00:31:07 and he recognized me and did an imitation of me. Wow. And now that would be like Charles Manson imitating me. That is where John Williams did the music also for the Towering Inferno.
Starting point is 00:31:24 And yes, this is interesting. You brought up Newman and McQueen. According to, again, I hope John Williams did the music also for the Towering Inferno. And yes, this is interesting. You brought up Newman and McQueen. According to them, again, I hope it isn't bullshit. According to what I found, McQueen insisted that they have the exact same number of lines. Oh, yes. And they were paid the same amount of money. They were both paid a million bucks and 7% of the gross for the box office. We're both paid a million bucks and 7% of the gross for the box office. And it was very, very tricky trying to figure out which name would go where on the poster.
Starting point is 00:31:52 Well, they did what they called staggering the credits. Like one was first, but it was lower. Correct. And the second one was higher. That's correct. Yes. And that was in their contracts. Now, here's my last question for you.
Starting point is 00:32:07 And then we'll do the rest of these movies that I wrote down on another show. Because we're going to run out of time. But, what was the name of the Mad Magazine parody of the Poseidon Adventure? Oh, I forget. Anybody? No can do. The Poop-Sigh-Down Adventure. Oh, I forget. Anybody? No can do. The Poop-Sigh-Down Adventure. Oh, God.
Starting point is 00:32:29 Once as witty as ever. As witty as ever. Yes. And you know what's sad is a lot of our listeners knew the answer to that question. Yes, yes. And were yelling it at their devices. I would say of these movies, The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure are actually not bad for what they are. And the actors are good.
Starting point is 00:32:49 And then they did Beyond the Poseidon. They did Beyond the Poseidon Adventure. Is Sally Field in that? She sure is. We'll save that for a future show. Paul, what do you got? That's it. Okay.
Starting point is 00:33:01 Did I cover this? I covered everything. Yeah. That's it. We're up to 74. We'll do the rest of them. And you guys know the titles. You probably know where I'm going with the rest of them. But I'm going to sneak in some weird ones. And we'll do it on a future episode. This show actually has often been described as a disaster. Yes. And I would say that's fair. Especially when we're looking for information. I don't know who you're referring to.
Starting point is 00:33:30 It's a disaster and a tragedy at the same time. So thank you to Eric Rine, our producer of the month for June. Sorry we're doing this in July, but we're behind, and we had a lot of mini episodes to do, and we had to do tribute episodes, bonus episodes, we had to do a tribute episodes, bonus episodes. We're calling them now. So thank you, Eric.
Starting point is 00:33:47 And if you guys go to Patreon, you can suggest an episode premise and we'll do it if we pick it. And David Zucker, if you're listening, I just realized you're in the movie business. Nice work. Would you like to take us out with some Maureen McGovern? Oh, there's got to be a morning after if we can hold on through the storm.
Starting point is 00:34:23 Something like that. You can see why that won an Academy Award. You can see. And this has been Gilbert and Frank's Amazing Colossal Obsessions. I'm sweating. We'll see you next time. Thank you, Frankie. Gilbert and Frank's Colossal Obsessions
Starting point is 00:34:46 Colossal Obsessions

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