How would you ladies like to earn ten times the amount of money you earn now? I'm not kidding. Ten times the amount of money that you earn right now.

Is that it? Producer Brad, in my recollection, this led to a whole monologue about finance and, you know, sort of one to rival Gordon Gekko's Greed is Good. Am I right, Paul?

I would say it's the antithesis of Gordon Gekko's Greed is Good. It is a rousing, labor-organizing mantra that's one of the main centerpieces of this film. It's the fulcrum upon which the plot turns.

Now, Paul, for a country that seems to hate sex workers as much as the United States does, and I think, you know, we can point to any number of anti-sex worker legislation going on all around the country, wow, they sure seem to make a lot of movies about sex workers, don't they?

They certainly did in 1982, and this is quite the double feature on the heels of the, let's say, contrasting trauma of a film that we endured last week.

Yes, no, last week we saw The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, and this week we're seeing Night Shift, which was Ron Howard's second movie, I believe, after Grand Theft Auto, but a predating splash, which was his big breakthrough, and this movie stars Henry Winkler as Chuck, who is a sort of bedraggled put-upon city employee who works at the city morgue. He has a wife who is neurotic and who has awful parents. Yes, he has a fiance who is neurotic and has awful parents and who cannot really have sex with him for any number of reasons, even though they are getting married, and he winds up getting a new friend at work, a work mate named Bill Blais Jowsky or Billy Blais, played by Michael Keaton in his first screen role ever, and it turns out that Chuck's neighbor is a hooker with a heart of gold named Belinda, played by Shelley Long, and when Belinda loses her pimp at the hands of Richard Belzer, go figure, Henry Winkler is convinced by Michael Keaton's character to turn the city morgue into a kind of brokerage for prostitutes, and they become what Michael Keaton's character refers to as love brokers. Of course, at first they do fantastically well, but then ultimately Richard Belzer catches up with Henry Winkler, setting up a cascading set of events that leads to the closure of their business, but really the establishment of great friendships between Shelley Long, well, a great romance between Shelley Long's character and Henry Winkler, and of course an undying friendship between Billy Blaze Jowsky and Chuck. Does that seem like a decent recap of the events of this film, Paul Alvarado-Dykstra, if that is your name?

Compellingly so.

Well, you know, it's funny because I've done all that, but we really have not followed our script in any way whatsoever. I think this is the part where I say, Hi, my name is Javi, or Grigio Markswatch.

And I'm the aforementioned Paul Alvarado-Dykstra. And this is

Multiplex Overthruster: Summer of '82.

You know, Paul, I genuinely believe that the reason we went so far off script in beginning the podcast today is that, I don't know about you, but for me, this movie, I have a lot to say about it, but it was such a tonic after seeing Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, to see a movie that was at least not cynically intentioned and kind of like pretty well made and kind of funny. I mean, sort of weird for its time, but sort of amiably good.

Dear listeners, presuming that you had the good sense to not subject yourself to Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, you have no idea what a relief Night Shift was to watch, to actually see a fun movie with fun characters played by actors who seem to be enjoying themselves and each other with dialogue that periodically sparkles.

Periodically.

Yes, and Burt Baccarat scoring.

And Carole Bayer-Segar and Rod Stewart, come on. Rod Stewart.

Yes, that's the big payoff of the whole film, is getting Rod Stewart in anticipation of later Dionne Warwick taking the baton.

And Elton John and who else? It was Dionne Warwick, Elton- Stevie Wonder. Yes, the closing credits for this movie is a song called That's What Friends Are For, which was a big hit in the 80s for Dionne Warwick, Elton John and Stevie Wonder, right? And it actually is the second of songs that Rod Stewart has done as the concluding song of a movie that wound up having an afterlife. The other one being, of course, the Dionne Warren classic Where My Heart Will Take Me, which was the closing credits for Patrick Adams, and became the opening theme for Star Trek Enterprise, right? That's the kind of shit I have crowding my head.

My heart goes out to you.

But Paul, let's get into it. Let's talk about Night Shift, because I think this is actually a fun one.

Yeah, this was such a-

Relief, really.

A window of enjoyment and just a cool breeze of relief. One thing that I thought was funny and interesting was that we are greeted by the logo of the Ladd Company. And I just find it striking that-

Paul, we need to get back on script. I'm sorry to cut you off. You know, I love you. But I think that before we start talking about the movie, we got to go to the bell, because producer Brad's already having an aneurysm. We've like thrown out the script. I mean, it's like literally the reverse Stockholm syndrome from Best Little Whorehouse in Texas has really compromised our podcast this week.

We're still recovering from that PTSD.

Producer Brad, let's go ahead and ring the bell.

Oh, okay, that's better.

You had the exact same thought that I had. Please go on.

This film opens with the timeless logo of The Lad Company, which also greeted us earlier this summer in the opening of Blade Runner. And I just think what a striking contrast for a production company to unleash such disparate films in the same summer.

See, I actually did not think it was a striking contrast. I actually found Blade Runner to be very similar thematically to Night Shift in that they're both films about profoundly depressed government workers who find a new lease on life.

I think you may be onto something. There are some cross-connections of subtext. Also, kind of vague connections of sex work.

And also not.

And law enforcement and all sorts of weird things.

I think what you're trying to say is no Javi. From the people who brought you Blade Runner.

Yes, Night Shift. Ushering in the collaboration between director Ron Howard and producer Brian Grazer. Also screenwriting super duo of the 80s, Lowell Gans and Babaloo Mandel. Gans, I believe, created Laverne and Shirley and wrote like 184 episodes of that. And then the two of them, of course, later would write Splash, Parenthood, City Slickers and League of Their Own. And you can kind of get the sense of this spark that is emerging of their voice in this film. And we get in the lead role, Henry Winkler getting the gift from his Happy Days co-star Ron Howard of basically the anti-fonds.

He is playing the anti-fonds. So Chuck is really like, you know, one of the things I noticed about this movie, Paul, is like, it's pretty shaggy.

Yeah.

It's not a tight movie. It's long stretches that are sort of of character. Yeah.

It's an hour 45 that feels like it should be 90 minutes.

Yeah, it does. It does. But at the same time, I think one of the things I enjoyed about this movie is that it really does feel like an object from another time. And it reminds me of like Moscow and the Hudson or like, you know, because even the movies that Gantz and Bandel went on to write, they got tighter and more like, you know, regimented comedically like this is what mainstream comedies are. This movie feels like, like if this movie were made today, it'd be like an independent film starring like Philip Seymour Hoffman or something like that. I mean, it'd be a lot scuzzier and grittier. It wouldn't have this script, you know? This doesn't feel like a movie that a studio would make today. You know, it feels like it's a sort of very kind of loose, very character driven kind of thing. Does that seem right to you?

Yeah. Although it does seem kind of akin to like an after hours, but with rounded off edges.

So rounded off.

So it does feel a little kind of studio sanitized. And on the one hand, what strikes me as we enter the world of the film, we're on the streets of New York City in 1982. And we're getting this showcase of street fashions that very quickly makes me feel, in a weird way, as much as this is kind of a cartoon of 1982 New York City, it also in a weird way feels like the most 1982 of the movies that we've seen so far this summer.

Paul, you're absolutely onto something I was thinking, which is like when I saw, so like they're not afraid to show New York Scuzzy because New York was Scuzzy, so if you're going to do a movie in New York, it's going to look like that. But yeah, out of all the movies you've seen, this is the one that actually feels like it takes place in on Earth in 1982 because even Poltergeist takes place in the suburb, that's very sort of fantastical in its own way, you know? And this movie generally feels like an object of 1982, both in that it is what was mainstream entertainment in 1982, but also in the sort of texture of the movie. After watching Star Trek 2, Blade Runner, Tron, all this stuff, like all of a sudden getting to a movie that's just set in that period, it's a very strange experience.

And there's a lot of great location work that showcasing the time capsule of New York City in 1982 that is so striking compared to what we're used to New York City now being, in particular the shots when they're down in the subway. It's just like, oh my God.

But this is the kind of movie this is, and I'm going to put this out now. I put in my notes chronologically, but there's a scene in this movie where Henry Winkler is riding the subway and a busker comes up to him with a saxophone and he starts playing the saxophone and Henry Winkler smiles and kind of like takes out a handful of coins and puts it in the guy's cup. And then the guy starts playing some sort of like improvisational, like jazz that's like very spiky and all that.

He keeps playing in his face.

He starts playing really unpleasant jazz. It's like the jazz solo from Lost Highway that Bill Pullman plays, you know. And Henry Winkler opens his briefcase and pulls out a checkbook and writes the guy a check and they just let the gag play. It has nothing to do with the movie. But the subway is portrayed as being horribly scuzzy. The sax player, even though I get the sense this movie really felt like how West Coasters felt about New York in 82, like it doesn't feel real. The fact that this movie stops for that gag sort of shows you how kind of loose it is and also how willing it is to live in this cartoon of New York, you know?

Yeah, although on the flip side of that, you know, the opening of this film is this kind of chase, this pimp is being chased through the streets and alleys of New York. He thinks he's made it home free, but he turns the lamp on to reveal the ominous visage of Richard Belzer. And his compatriot, Cleon, I think is the character's name, who are basically out to shake him down or de-stip them and it's kind of gone, like they've had enough.

Yeah, you get the sense that these guys sort of control the pimping, that the character, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jones, in one of the many sort of stereotypical jokes in this movie that, I don't know, whatever, hasn't been paying his protection to the other guys. So what do they do to him, Paul? Well, at the same time that two guys are playing a pick up game down in the out under the apartment.

Well, yeah, and I think this establishes quite elegantly and eloquently Ron Howard's true emergence as a filmmaker because he is intercutting a very fun and funny street basketball game at night outside the building and then several floors upstairs, there's the shakedown happening and they basically just had it, there's no more of this pimp talking his way out of shit. They tie him to a chair, they throw him out the window in tandem with the street basketball like layup and there's like a double basket that is made of the basketball and then the pimp tied to the chair crashing through the basketball hoop.

And because the two men in the alley have made a bet about whether the other guy can dunk, even after the pimp has fallen through the hoop, after the dunk, we get the following punch line. Ready? Producer Brad?

Pay up, sucker.

Pay up, sucker.

Yes, because this is New York City. So they're unfazed by this completely. Then we get this, I think, very efficient montage where, you know, the cops show up, the body is loaded into a hearse. And then we follow the hearse through the streets of 1982 New York to the morgue. And then there at the morgue, we meet Chuck.

So basically, the first 15 minutes of the movie are just about how human leading Chuck's life is. And it starts with his boss basically moves him to the night shift at the morgue, even though Chuck has been there for six years. Chuck is very competent. Chuck used to be a stockbroker, a financial advisor. But Chuck is being moved to the night shift so that his boss can put his idiot nephew on the day shift. That's a favor. Yes. You know, I'm going to I'm going to skip forward to clip number four, because I want to show you just what an idiot the nephew is ready. So this is a scene later in the movie where Chuck comes in, the nephew has been watching TV and he says, Hi, Mr. Lumbly.

Oh, that Barney Rubble. What an actor.

Okay, then.

Yeah.

So the idiot nephew always leaves a mess for Henry Winkler to clean up. The paperwork is always a mess. Then Henry Winkler goes to his apartment where he lives alone, but is often visited by his kvetchy fiance. He's always attacked by this dog.

Yes.

Anytime he comes out of the elevator, this Rottweiler turns the corner and barks at him. And it's always Henry Winkler trying to get to the lock before the dog mauls him. And also, anytime he's delivered food, the order is wrong, but he never does anything about it because he's that shy and meek.

And let me just say, these are fantastically planted setups.

Oh, oh, but one of the things I noticed about this movie is that, yeah, it's like, in spite of it feeling kind of loose, it's also a movie that has all of the classical Hollywood, like, structure of this is a plant, this is a plant, this is a plant, and everything pays off by the end of the movie. Like, it's loose in terms of the plotting, but it's not loose in terms of like those structural tricks that all screenwriters have.

And that are primarily really tied to character, indeed. And in terms of setting goalposts for our characters' arcs and journeys that are very satisfying. The other thing that happens in that first scene in The Morgue is we meet Shelley Long's character of Belinda, the hooker who is called in to identify the body as her pimp. And then this also establishes that who she is, she thinks she recognizes Chuck somewhere, which is not good for him to hear in front of his boss.

There's a cop and she's like, I know you and he's like, I know and I'm married.

So there's a whole bit there that's a little like, it's not the best bit, but it kind of establishes a dynamic, a baseline dynamic for them introduces both of them in a very efficient way and also establishes a quick plot information about who they are and what their situation is that will then evolve and pay off later. But yeah, the painful dynamic between Chuck and his fiancee, Charlotte.

Oh boy, Charlotte is obsessed with her own weight.

Played by Gina Hecht.

She doesn't want to have sex with the lights on. Basically, this is a scene about how she can't have an orgasm. She doesn't want to have sex with them because she's upset about about her weight.

Yeah, he heads to work while everybody else is coming home. So he's fighting the crowds, the masses of people leaving their jobs and he's having to go to his job. That's played pretty effectively. Yeah, then we get that interaction with the nephew. One of the funny things that I like about this is that we're getting these little cues about right out of the gate of who Chuck is and also I think to very clearly draw stark distinctions between the audience's identification with Henry Winkler as the fonts, which at this point is indelible in the culture of the moment. And so he is meek, he is a pushover, he is also very fastidious. And so in terms of him rearranging his desk when he takes over the shift, he even keeps a tall potted plant in a locker that he pulls out and sets up and then he puts back at the end of his shift. Like just weird little details that I just think are so charming and specific. And I just appreciate the attention to such details and how he plays it.

It's a movie that I think is paced very much of its time and it takes its time setting up these characters and all of that. And one of the things I noticed watching this movie, Paul, is that it's a comedy. I didn't laugh out loud a lot in this movie, like, or at all, like, I mean, I think I laughed out loud a lot more when I was 12 and I saw it on the movie channel a bunch of times because it's all rated, I couldn't see it in the theater, obviously, but I didn't find it particularly funny, but there's just sort of amiability to this film that just sort of, it just sort of ambles on and you're just sort of, oh, this is, this is amiable, you know, it's a very affable movie, I guess.

Yeah, it's charming. It's not laugh out loud funny. It's sort of like intermittently chuckle funny.

Now here's the thing that happens next.

Yes, one of the great character introductions of all time.

Yes, this is the introduction of Billy Blaze. And you know, let's just say that a shadow is cast over the door, which has a window on it and that kind of pebbled marbled window, you can't exactly you see the light.

Hi. How are you doing? I'm Bill Blaze Jasky. You call me Billy Blaze. You must be Chuck, right? Nice shoes. Hey, is this all right? Drive around, pick up stiffs or what? Hey Chuck, who's this? Wife. My fiance. Nice frame.

Nice frame. As he picks up the picture frame, puts it back down.

So it's a great intro. This is Michael Keaton's first rollout. Did you know Michael Keaton before this? He was a standup comedian before all this, right? I think I'd seen him as a standup before.

So he'd been on late night TV and stuff. So of course, I was way too young to see this movie when it came out in 1982. So I didn't see this movie till much later, and I hadn't seen it in ages when I just revisited it. But it's so, what a joy once the two of them are on camera, and we get just this great buddy comedy duo, and the delight in Henry Winkler being able to play the straight guy, the uncool character, and Michael Keaton in a supporting role that's seen stealing out the wazoo where he's basically the Fonz in this movie. But he's sort of the Fonz.

Stupid Fonz though. He's like the Fonz that he had. No cool. He's like delusional Fonz. He's like the Fonz. Thinks he's as cool as the Fonz, only he's absolutely not. But it's also interesting because like Mork was a character on Happy Days, right? Robin Williams says Mork was actually introduced on Happy Days as a character. I think that there's some lineage between Billy Blaze and what Robin Williams became in the 80s. In terms of Logan's and Babalu Mandel having worked with Gary Marshall on Happy Days and creating Laverne and Shirley and all that. There's a lot of that kind of antique energy.

Yes.

The other thing I find really interesting is Billy Blaze, you said it, he's a supporting character. He doesn't have an arc really.

A little bit.

Yeah, okay. A little tiny arc.

Okay, yeah, he's got an arclet, his arc is basically from completely self-absorbed, semi-narcissism to learning the value of friendship.

To merely being absorbed.

Yes, yes. Exactly. Yeah, he comes in as this whirling dervish of manic energy. There's a direct line where you can see anyone who saw this is like, well, of course, we have to cast him as Beetlejuice years later.

Absolutely, yeah.

But what a startling debut and showcase for his gifts and charisma and energy. He's just ceaselessly delightful to watch.

And again, this is a movie that, you know, well, you know what, let's go to clip number three. This happens soon after the clip, the introduction, but it sort of gives you an entire idea of who his character is in this clip.

You wonder why I carry his tape recorder? It's to tape things. See? I'm an idea man, Chuck. All right? I get ideas all day long. I can't control them. It's like they come charging in. I can't even fight them if I wanted to, you know? So I say them in here, and that way I never forget them. See what I'm saying? Okay, here's an example.

Watch out. Stand back.

This is Bill. Idea to eliminate garbage.

Edible paper.

See?

And it's a great recurring bit. I can't help but wonder how many of the bits are scripted and how many are improvised by Keaton.

You know, I don't know either, but later on, he has the idea to feed the tuna mayonnaise, which I think is the best thing ever.

Oh, my God. That is note to self is Carl Sarkis. But there are all these great little beats and asides, like the rhythm of Keaton's performance, like even when he's like, I can't keep this in my head. Like he adds this little, he adds little things, little beats that are like kind of the syncopation in his delivery. And as he's getting the tour of the morgue, there's this great beat where, you know, Chuck, who's very straight-laced and serious and is showing him in the drawer and everything and reveals to him, but not to us, a corpse. And his delivery of that guy's dead. Like, it's just, he just has such specificity of rhythm and delivery on every line that's so uniquely Michael Keaton.

I think what's really interesting about him is, you know, I think about a more modern comedian like Jim Carrey. And even Jim Carrey is not that much more modern because Jim Carrey is like a 90s guy. But, you know, Jim Carrey was so hyperkinetic, so antic, and actually I'm one of the big haters of Jim Carrey. I really feel like he hijacks every movie he gets in. I find him to be a hostage taker comedian. You will either laugh at me or enjoy nothing. And what I think is really interesting about Michael Keaton as an actor is that he sort of approaches this role more as an actor than as a comedian. So he is actually playing Billy Blaze as a character, so even though he's very antic, he's not like so overwhelming that he's not being generous with everybody else on screen with him, you know? When you hear it in audio, you're missing his physicality, but you're also not getting that he's acting and performing a scene with a guy, not just hijacking the scene, you know?

Yeah, I think you hit on something very important that was rolling around my brain, but I hadn't quite congealed into articulation, which is this is a role that very easily could be hijacked by an actor that you would feel like, oh, they're in their own movie. You never feel like Michael Keaton is in his own movie. He feels completely integrated and cohesive to every scene and the interactions with the other characters. He is supporting the other characters and playing off of them, not just entertaining himself or doing his own thing. And that just strikes me as an incredibly hard thing to do, to strike that balance, given the amplitude of the energy that he's bringing. But it's just, yeah, it's a testament to just, he's, I think, one of the great, brilliant actors, period.

I was going to say that's part of it being an object film at the time, but actually isn't, because you had all of these star-driven comedies during this time. You had your Richard Pryor movies, your Cheech and Chong movies, your Jerry Lewis movies, movies where...

Right, well, I was going to say, it's also a throwback to screwball comedy characters, but updated in a modern context for the time.

Yeah, but it's not a star-driven movie. It's not a movie about, come see Richard Pryor, be Richard Pryor and tell everybody off. It's a movie, it's sort of like the same way that 48 Hours, while it's an Eddie Murphy movie. It's a movie where Eddie Murphy plays a character, and not Eddie Murphy, who you're coming in to see be Eddie Murphy, you know? So this just feels like when these guys get their first movie, they're not there to be, you know, Jim Carrey is. They're there to be part of a movie, and it's just sort of interesting to see an actor really embrace that.

Yeah, and they walk in as a comedic duo. I mean, this immediately is a buddy comedy. Yes, absolutely. And the balance, the alchemy of the energy between the two of them is what a gift. And what a stroke of luck, and also just perfect casting and great writing and direction. Just all of this comes together. This is the centerpiece of the film, is the dynamic between the two of them.

It is, and it's interesting because, so where the movie goes next is you have another night of bad sex with Henry Winkler and his fiance, Charlotte.

I just love, we cut to him in bed, struggling with a Rubik's Cube, again, 1982. And then at the risk of it being a hat on a hat, Flayed Open on his chest is a guidebook of how to solve the Rubik's Cube.

Yes.

As he is waiting on his fiance who's in the bathroom, again, struggling with her crippling body image, struggles that are heartbreaking, but also played for comedy.

And that's one of the things about this movie that is sort of, you know, like it's interesting. I don't think this movie has a mean-spirited bone in its body. It's actually such a, it's a movie that's almost amiable to a fault.

Yeah.

It plays so much of it. So like you said, it was like After Hours with the edges, you know, sawed off, but the edges are like smoothed out. They've been power washed. This movie has no edge. It's edge free. And there was a little bit of me going, you know, this poor woman is really dealing with weight issues that I can actually kind of understand. Yeah. It was sort of strange to see them played for laughs, but it's also just played to show that Henry Winkler really is in a relationship with somebody he shouldn't be in a relationship with. But what happens in this scene is that just as they get down to having sex.

And after one of my favorite lines where she's like, are you excited when she finally gets in the bed?

Great line.

Like the French when Lindbergh landed.

What the hell was that? I was going to put that in for producer Brad to get us to sound like. I almost did too. Yeah. She's like, are you excited? And he's like, like the... I mean, what is that line? I mean, like...

It's so random and weird.

Like, would anybody make that like... I don't know. It's very weird to me.

I now aspire to find an opportunity in Casual Conversation to deploy it. But yes, but then, sorry to interrupt, but then we get, again, the next big plot advancement.

Yes, is that there's loud country music playing. Henry Winkler goes upstairs to tell the guy to turn the music down. Of course, he gets intimidated by this seven foot tall cowboy wearing a cowboy hat and his tighty-whities and cowboy boots. But it turns out that that man is Shelley Long's client and that Shelley Long is Henry Winkler's neighbor. Who'd have thunk it?

What a coincidence. And that's how she recognized him.

Yes, so the other thing that happens here is that Henry Winkler's fiancée comes up. She actually gets them to turn the music down, but she's already dressed in her city clothes because she's not going to have sex with Henry Winkler because the night has been ruined. So again, his life sucks. But his neighbor happens to be a hooker with a heart of gold played by a shockingly sexy Shelley Long, right?

So at the risk of diverging into a tangent.

You don't say.

Which I never do.

No.

I can't say that I ever harbored an abundance of inner Shelley Long fandom. I knew her from Cheers like most of us did and a smattering of other things. And just not my comedic vibe, personally. No disrespect of great respect and admiration for her, her talent and everything. She is amazing in this movie.

Yes, she is.

She is so fun and charming and unaffected. I previously, and I think part of it was the role in Cheers. There's a lot of affectation in that role and that performance, I feel. And this felt so refreshingly unaffected.

Absolutely. And I think that one of the things is like, because Cheers was so big and her role in it was so big, I feel like she sort of got typecasts at that very sort of pent up, kind of like prissy sort of character. And this is, it's funny because also she places character within the reality of the movie. The character places very down to earth. She's comfortable with her sexuality. She's not really vulgar. They leave that to the horribly stereotypical Latina one later on.

Oh, boy.

But you know, in a weird way, the character feels very real within the reality of the movie and she feels like she's actually living in this movie, which I think is a real feat. And yeah, and later on, there's a scene where she strips down to her underwear to make breakfast for Henry Winkler and it is extraordinarily sexy, which is not a word I would imagine with Shelley Long.

So there you go. Yeah, no, she's wonderful in this film. And it also, as I think we felt and observed on other occasions, observing other actors who are women in this period who shine in a spectacular role and are eminently deserving of a flourishing career, but just were not given the opportunities of great roles and who kind of diminished in our awareness and appreciation very unfairly in contrast to their male actor counterparts.

So do you think Shelley Long did not get her due or do you think that she had the career she should have had after this?

I think she did not get her due in film for film roles. I do think obviously Cheers was an enormous gift, but in an interesting way, I think very similar to Henry Winkler trapped her in an identity and a stereotype of a particular tone and persona that then she probably struggled to break free of. And again, I mean, it's interesting too with Henry Winkler, here he's given this chance and showcase to say, hey, I'm not just the Fonz, but it didn't really click over. What came out of the film was Michael Keaton becoming a star.

Well, it's funny because Henry Winkler came out of being the Fonz being the coolest guy on earth and his big movie break as a leading man was to not play the coolest guy on earth, which he's very good at. I mean, he's a wonderful actor.

Yes, but I think what's interesting to observe kind of in parallel is that he then took this whole other career route as an incredibly successful TV producer of MacGyver and of other things before then re-emerging later as an actor in work like Arrested Development and Barry. He's just amazing and I think also underappreciated, but now thankfully getting more of his due that he's probably been deserving of.

So I'm going to rush with some more stuff here. As always, Paul, we got to get moving. I'm the getting moving guy. I'm the man of this podcast. So bad sex.

Clint Howard.

So Clint Howard comes into the morgue and we find out that because it's a Ron Howard movie, Clint Howard is going to be in it, his brother. We find out that Billy has been using the Herses to run a clandestine limo service.

Yes, as a side hustle.

And he bribes Henry Winkler with a hundred dollars to keep quiet, which is hilarious. You know, I said I was going to move it forward, but I got to do one digression in the New York of this movie. Have you noticed that no one ever dies? Well, I mean, there are literally corpses. Like corpses are in the morgue during scenes in the movie, but they never have to go get corpses or look at corpses. It's kind of a very sanitized scene.

Other than the opening sequence of the pimp, no other body ever arrives at this city morgue.

Never, even though it's the city morgue.

Bizarre. But I love this sequence, the reveal that Billy has just sort of created the side hustle, taking the hearse and the interchange between him and Chuck as he is redressing the hearse.

Yes, because he has a Billy Blaze limo service magnet that he puts over the city morgue logo, which is kind of hilarious.

And then a giant top hat to cover the red, you know, police light or a lot of alert lights spinning on the top.

Well, Billy's clearly an idea guy.

Yeah, it's so funny. It's just a great side gag, this whole bit.

But it's interesting because this leads to two exchanges that I think sort of are the crux of the movie, because by now we're half an hour into the movie. And literally nothing has really happened, other than that we found out how put upon Henry Winkler's and a lot of setup. So this is the part where you realize what the movie is really about, which is sort of Henry Winkler's relationship with Billy in a lot of ways. And we get the big, what I call the big blow up, which is the end of the first act is actually about these two characters becoming friends and having a moment. So, producer Brad, could you play clip number five? This is where Henry Winkler finally blows up at Billy after all of his antics.

I wish you would shut up.

Vegas is not a treachery, you know, Chuck.

He's got Brad, you know, Wayne Newton, got him. He's an Indian, do you know that? I'll introduce you if you want. Would you do me a favor? Would you please shut up? You're telling me to shut up? I'm telling you to shut up. I will tell you a recorder so that you don't forget. Hello, this is Chuck to remind Bill to shut up. You know, this used to be such a quiet place before you got here. You talk too much. Edible paper feeding mayonnaise to tuna fish. I will give you a quarter if you just stop talking.

So now we know that Henry Winkler does have a boiling point, which is interesting, but he takes it out on this guy who's sort of, I mean, kind of a pain in the ass, but inoffensive, you know?

An agent of chaos has descended into Chuck's very carefully controlled sea of tranquility that all he wanted was a quiet, peaceful place to work. That's why he took this job. That's why he settled for this existence. And it has all been thrown into disarray by Billy.

And this is what I call, so this is the big breakup and here's the big makeup.

Yes.

Because again, this is the end of the first act of the movie, so you got to cement the friendship between guys.

And it's important, I think, just for people who aren't seeing it, that Billy retreats after this follow-up. And he sequesters himself into what do we call it? A morgue drawer.

That's a drawer, yeah, a morgue drawer.

Yeah, where he is listening over and over again to the...

Chuck berating him on tape, yes. So let's see the big makeup because this is actually the end of the first act, which is interesting. Go ahead, Brad.

You think it's been easy on me? I come in here, I'm the new guy with no friends. I confide in you my whole life.

I tell you my deepest, most intimate stuff. You share anything with me?

I see a picture of your fiancé every day.

You don't even tell me her name. I gave you $100. I didn't ask for it. That's what made it such a beautiful gesture on my part.

Never mind, forget it. We'll work together every night like strangers.

That's fine with me.

That's the drawer unrolling. Yeah.

Charlotte. What? My fiance's name is Charlotte.

It's a really interesting moment in the movie, because Keaton is funny, especially when he talks about the 100 bucks, and he says, that's what made it such a beautiful and loving gesture on my part. It's hilarious the way he says those lines, but there is a sense that these two guys are bonding. Ultimately, for a movie set in the scuzzy New York world of pimps, morgues, and whatever, it's ultimately such a sweet movie in its heart. Whatever stuff it may have that's politically incorrect and all that, this movie just kind of has a heart of gold. More so than even Shelley Long's character.

I mean, at this moment in this scene, you just love them. Like you just love them. They sell it, they bond. It's just this great kind of showcase of male friendship being forged. And what sells it is that Keaton can seamlessly move between these quiet, human, genuine, introspective lines and the big broader comedy without missing a beat and without it feeling either of them feeling artificial. And it's just, he's a magician.

And Winkler has that smile at the end of this scene that you see that he's willing to kind of let humanity into the performance, which is not something you always see in a lot of acting. So they've rebonded their friends again, but then the plot, then the plot strikes because Henry Winkler goes back to his apartment. The plot fins. Henry Winkler goes back to his apartment and finds that Shelley Long has been beaten by a client because Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jones, her pimp, has been taken out by the bad guys.

Finds her cowered in the elevator.

And there's a couple of things that happen here. One of them is that, of course, this is where Henry Winkler finds this out and he's gonna tell Billy and Billy's gonna have an idea about what to do here. We'll talk about that later. But also, Henry Winkler is trying to help Shelley Long and the elevator door opens and there's a Girl Scout who starts blowing her whistle and shouting mugger. And then Henry Winkler is beaten by Girl Scouts. Literally, they come in with their cookies and they beat the shit out of them with cookies. Because they think he's mugging Shelley Long, which is kind of a hilarious sidekick, to be honest with you.

And if that weren't enough, and I should point out for legal reasons, they are not Girl Scouts, they are Bluebirds. But the Bluebird who misidentifies him as a mugger and summons her whole not Girl Scout troop armed with boxes of cookies to intervene is none other by a very young Shannen Doherty. One of a handful of really amazing tiny cameos that pop up throughout the film.

Well, it's not a cameo. She's a working actor, and that's not even a cameo.

Retrospective cameos, I would say.

It's a reverse cameo, yes. Well played, Paul. Okay, so Henry Winkler, after having a moment of bonding with Shelley Long because she tends to his wounds as he tends to his wounds, goes back to the morgue, tells Billy about the problem that his hooker neighbor is having.

Yeah, they have this conversation on the subway.

On the subway, yes.

Revealing now at the closing the end of act one, the engine of plot.

It's not even the end of act one. We're like in the first sequence of act two. That's about 40 minutes into the movie, but here's what happens. Clip number seven, producer Brad.

I really hope they find someone trustworthy. Are you crazy? Those guys are killers.

They're animals.

They dress nice though. Wait a minute, hold the phone, Chuck. We got all that space down at the morgue? All those cars, all that time at night, nobody watching us? We could handle things for your next door neighbor and all our girlfriends right out of the morgue. Pimps? Are you saying we should become pimps? Pimps is an ugly word. We could call ourselves love brokers.

Well, hang on, is that the end of the clip, producer Brad, because Henry Winkler is sitting there kind of being very taciturn about this idea and then Keaton exits the subway and just as he's leaving, he puts his sunglasses on, peeks through the window and says, Love brokers.

One of multiple pair of distinctively 80s sunglasses that Michael Keaton periodically dons.

Yes, I thought those were like Ray-Ban Wayfarers, they're a classic design from the 1940s. Anyway, not just from the 80s, but they did come back in the 80s, they were very popular.

There's some other very like weird, very nice, some of them are very 1980s-ish, yeah.

So Henry Winkler, of course, this is the refusal of the call.

Yes.

And what I wrote here is, a long stretch without a plot point.

Yeah, but I find it very amusing in this scene of the two of them riding the subway, discussing the merits of pimps. Yes. And it's just a fascinating approach to this subject matter and the kind of moral dilemma of the immorality of pimping, but also the inherent structural necessity of it. And it's fascinating, this discussion they have.

Like all Hollywood movies about sex work, it all boils down to obviously somebody's gonna have a romance and be upset about the other character being in sex work, but it's also like, it's such a weird thing. We live in a country that so despises sex workers, and yet there's all these movies where there are these sort of, again, hookers with the heart of gold, who they're either running it themselves, or the inherent fairness, unfairness of sex work being illegal is always the crux of these things, and yet we don't live in a country that's particularly friendly towards, it's a very odd sort of thing that keeps recurring in cinema. I don't know, anyway. We find out that Henry Winkler and Shelley Long are the same building. She comes to his apartment and says that she should make him breakfast because they're both working the night shift because she's the hooker and he works in the morgue. We have a wonderful sort of meat, second meat cute where she makes eggs for him. And this is where his apartment is so hot because of the way the building has been painted shut. She strips down to like a belly shirt and her panties and makes eggs for him. And of course he's smitten with her. And weirdly she's very, and like I said, she's very sexy in the scene, but it's also very nonchalant.

And I will just say, very visible product placement for Sunny Delight, an interesting choice given the subject matter.

I will leave it to the audience to come up with the punchlines because they will write themselves. So then there's this whole sequence, like I said, a long stretch without a plot point, where Henry Winkler is thinking about whether to be a love broker or not, but he winds up going to court because it's Thanksgiving and Charlotte's awful parents come to town and this awful mom is there. And Shelley Long calls him during Thanksgiving dinner from the courthouse because she has been arrested and needs bail money. So everybody from the family, Henry Winkler's mom, the in-laws and the fiance wind up going to court and witnessing this weird night court trial where she's basically accusing a client of not paying her after services were rendered and the client says she assaulted him and the client winds up showing the judge that he was assaulted by taking off his pants to show a bite mark on his butt. So everybody's upset with Henry Winkler. How could this woman be your friend? He's like, she's my neighbor. And the scene that turns him into the pimp is the scene in the car going home from court where everybody's talking about Henry Winkler and they basically say, we're gonna straighten him out just like I straighten your father out. And it's listening to these women talk about how they're going to make him into something other than what he wants to be that eventually is the crux of why he decides to make this business. Right?

Yeah, and the way that scene is framed and shot with him kind of squeezed in the middle of the back seat with people talking over him and across him and about him and he's there and disparaging him and diminishing him. It's all very effective. There's something I wanted to cover real quick before that. So leading up to the Thanksgiving dinner slash night court scene, we get this walk and talk through Times Square, which is the seediest version of 82 New York City, Times Square.

It looks real scuzzy, doesn't it?

It's the scuzziest of scuzzy.

As clean up as this movie is, it literally looks like a Death Wish movie when they're having this walk and talk. Yeah.

It's kind of amazing as just a time capsule in a showcase as Billy Michael Keaton is again, trying to make the case of how prostitution is probably one of the most moral things in the world. He has this very bend over backwards kind of convoluted argument.

His logic is that if men don't get their basic urges out with sex workers, they will wind up attacking Girl Scouts.

Yes, which is deeply problematic worldview to say the least, but then we get established that, you know, Chuck is then going to get his hair cut. There's this great little haircut scene because Charlotte's parents are coming for Thanksgiving. And so it's like, it's setting that up. And there's just this great line at the end of that where he's just, again, the refusal of the call that's happening, but he tells Billy, I wash my hands and my feet of you.

Oh, no, no, actually, that's Billy. No, yeah, Michael, it's Henry Winkler. We have that clip. This is the last refusal of the call before we go to the clip that opened the show. And Michael Keaton gets very upset with Henry Winkler and says, are you ever think about it as yourself?

You don't care about what happens to me. You don't care about what happens to Belinda. You don't care about what happens to the Girl Scouts of America, America. I'm fed up with you. I wash my hands and my feet of you.

I just love that so much. I love him. It's so great.

As problematic, like this movie is, again, weird attitudes toward sex workers, weird attitudes toward sex, weird attitudes toward eating disorders, played for fun. But again, the movie's just so goddamn amiable that you're kind of like, I don't know. If this movie were a movie that isn't clearly as just misshapen and misbegotten as The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, I'd find a lot of the stuff much more offensive.

Yes.

But this movie feels, it literally feels like they were having fun making it. They wrote this fun script. They're gonna do it. And I don't know, it's weird, just the difference in intent.

Yes.

Between Ron Howard and Colin Higgins, but especially Burt Reynolds. Let's go back to fucking bashing on Best Little Whorehouse.

Please.

So Burt Reynolds is just so mercenary in that movie. He's so clearly not, doesn't wanna be there. He's there for a paycheck and somebody thinks he'll be good with Dolly and he's not. And like this movie, you can tell everybody likes each other. Everybody's having fun making the movie. And it helps paper over a lot of really problematic shit, doesn't it Paul?

Yeah, completely. Because at the center, there's like a real theme, not just a friendship, but and this line that we just heard also underlines it. It is this conversation between selfishness and selflessness. And both of these characters in their own way are trapped by their selfishness. And it's about breaking them outside of that to be more selfless and less selfish through the power of friendship. Because as Burt Bacharach and Rod Stewart teach us, that's what friends are for.

That is what friends are for, yeah. Indeed. Look, I think one of the nice things about this movie is that it is written in a very sort of classical Hollywood way. Everybody has a clean, broad arc that Henry Winkler is gonna become more of a man, a more assertive man. He's gonna fall in love with Shelley Long. They're gonna have their thing. He's gonna ultimately become a very sort of specifically kind of stereotypical version of man, but he's gonna be a man. Michael Keaton is gonna kind of grow up and mature a little bit. Shelley Long is, is she gonna leave sex work? I don't know. Maybe, maybe they heavily intimate that she is, but that's again, a weird thing in the movie that you're supposed to leave sex work once you find real love, which is odd.

Well, yeah, that's-

Really problematic. Not really the way things are, like as far as you look at, I don't know a lot about sex work, but some of the fellows at Bible Study were talking about it. And apparently a lot of sex workers have very good relationships with men who they're, or women who they're in love with, and they just do their work because it's work. So it's a thing. But yeah, it's very much about the power of friendship kind of bringing everybody to their next level as a person.

Well, no, and I was also gonna just say, like you were pointing out essentially the earnestness of the characters and the sort of the good naturedness and the innocence of it. We have this setup to this Thanksgiving dinner scene where the fiance's parents are there, but also Henry Winkler's mom is there, who also looks kind of young to be his mom. Then he gets the call that Belinda's been arrested. And I'm watching this thinking, well, of course then we're gonna get the scene and he kind of teases it, whispering like he's gonna have to leave to go take care of this. Now he's gonna cover up what that's gonna leave. But we cut to the reveal that he doesn't do that. He ends up taking them all with him to my court, which is insane, which is absolutely insane, but adds this other level of humor because it's just that he doesn't see a problem with that. Like he doesn't, he's not as mortified by that as they all are.

Yeah, I think it's probably something where like the entire family insisted on going and Chuck had to take them because he's so put upon, you know?

Yeah, he couldn't refuse them, yeah.

Now, Paul, this leads to the middle of the movie, which is what I call the proposal and the montage. So we have the clip we started the movie with, how would you like to earn 10 times more money?

Yeah, because this interaction with his family is the breaking point. And then he goes to see Billy and he says yes. He says, okay, fine, let's do this. And then we get this amazing scene.

They have a meeting with the prostitutes. Now we've played Henry Winkler's first part of it. Here's the second part of it, which is clip number 10, producer Brad.

Why should you be cheated and beaten? Do you have a dental plan? Well, if you come with us, we'd like to give you a sound foundation, a financial foundation. And if you don't come with us, well, then I totally understand it. And I say, thank you very much for listening.

That's Chuck in a nutshell. He literally wants to become a pimp so that he can create a savings plan and a dental plan for prostitutes. And by the way, what this leads to is the montage, obviously, of them succeeding wildly.

The great second act montage.

And what you find out is Henry Winkler not only gets them, not only has like spreadsheets for everything, not only is he keeping track of everything's savings and giving them the only taking, he's investing all their money and he winds up buying the hookers at Burger King.

Basically, yes, yes. Basically a burger franchise restaurant, presumably right off of Times Square. But it's this so dated, but wonderfully so, them going into business montage with the ladies of the night and it is delightful. And there's the contrast between the fastidious Chuck who is stashing and saving his cash in the multiplying coffee cans in his cupboards while Billy is spending money on frivolous things.

You may recall that at the beginning of the movie when they're talking about pimps, at the time when Billy makes the proposal, he says, these people are animals, they're killers. They dress nice though. So Billy's becoming more pimped out as the montage goes on.

And buys a pretty resplendent pimp mobile.

He does, he buys a limo, yeah.

That we later see, it's pretty great.

And now again, now Paul, during this entire montage, my note was, did not NYC have a major murder spree in the early nineties? Where are the dead? There's no dead bodies in this movie.

Yeah, yeah, for all of its lurid location filming, it is a remarkably sanitized 1982 New York City.

Yeah, it's also one of those movies that, you know, and I don't mean to say this pejoratively, but it's like, you can tell the people who made this movie came from television. Ron Howard is a wonderful director and his directing here is very television. The sets look like sets. Whenever we're not outside, you can just clearly tell you're on a set and the directing sort of feels like three camera TV directing. It doesn't actually conceal that it's a set. Like sometimes there's just more floor than you see in most movies, you know, because it's where the cameras are and shit like that. It feels like a movie that's, again, it has that kind of looseness. It has that kind of, again, it's kind of shaggy in a way that television was shaggy.

Yeah, it's an interesting contrast between these scenes on stages that, yeah, do feel very conventional, like television. And then we pop out into these location, exterior shoots that feel more cinematic.

So here's what's happening in the movie. Now, Henry Winkler is having a panic, right? He's having a crisis. Yeah, exactly. So the big plot twist now is that they're succeeding wildly, but it's Chuck who's having issues with it. Let's go to clip number 11.

So what's the matter? Ever since we started this, I have been ill. I have headaches, stomach aches. I get the chills. My gums are bleeding and my hair keeps falling out into the sink. So? Bill, let me try to explain this to you. As we sit here and idly chat, there are women, female human beings, rolling around in strange beds with strange men and we are making money from that. Is this a great country or what? Look at this. This is hair. This is hair that used to be in my head, see? The same thing happened to me when I was working on Wall Street. I had to wear a hat sitting at my desk. This is Bill, mission in life, make Chuck a man.

This is a great scene.

So this is the complication of this movie is that now that they've succeeded wildly in being pimps, Henry Winkler is having a moral panic.

Yes.

Honestly, until the plot kicks back in, that's kind of what's occupying the movie's whole thing, right?

It's one of my favorite dynamics when it's done well, which are, be careful what you wish for, where two characters are in the same situation, and one of them, it's a dream, but to the other, it's a nightmare. And they're in the same, it's the same situation, but it's all about their perspective and it's rooted in character in terms of how they are managing or dealing with processing and experiencing the situation. And this is such a great effect and it also kind of sets things up in terms of the fact that, okay, this is not sustainable. This is foreshadowing of things gonna go off the rails.

But it's also during this movie that, so it's during this part of the scene, he has the moral panic. Now, Michael Keaton, Billy, winds up throwing a frat party at the morgue and this is kind of, there's sort of two breaking points in the movie that happened now. One of them is he throws the frat party, right? And that sort of really breaks Henry Winkler, right? But then-

It's a chaotic scene. Just leading up to that, I wanna mention there's a funny detail in the scene where Chuck and Billy are conferring and having this conflict, where Billy reveals he has been patting his shirt sleeves with fake muscles, which I just find an amusing foreshadowing to his later role as Batman.

Well, the scene starts with him eating, he's eating a corn dog and then he's putting tissues in his sleeves so that he looks bigger because he says that some of the people that they're pimping to are tough hombres and they might get violence. And then he sticks the corn dog in his pants and that's kind of the punchline of his feed, which is hilarious.

Yes, yes. Yeah, but then Chuck arrives to discover Bill's hosting this chaotic frat party in the morgue.

And yet that's not the part that ends the prostitution thing. They keep going at it. We have Henry Winkler buying the hookers, the burger joint after the frat party.

It's worth pointing out, and I didn't spot him, and I couldn't be bothered to go back to look at the scene. Apparently frat boy number one credited is Kevin Costner.

Yes, I saw that too. And it was, yeah, oh, producer Brad.

Michael Keaton has the bottle balance on his head dancing through the room. Kevin Costner is directly behind him egging him on.

Wow.

Wow, Oscar winning director, Kevin Costner.

An auspicious cinematic appearance. And it ends, of course, with the return of Clint Howard.

Yes, indeed.

Who has been hooking up in one of the morgue drawers, which then gives everybody else the same idea that that's a thing they can do.

But what's interesting is that this is not the thing that ends the friendship. Even though this is the most chaotic scene in the movie, it's not the thing that ends the friendship. Chuck winds up kicking everybody out of the morgue, but then we see him and Belinda and Billy kind of hanging out.

Yeah, well, we get a Chuck and Belinda walk and talk underscored by the instrumental. That's what friends are for. And so he's kind of sharing the dilemma and stuff with him. Then we get the scene with Billy in Chuck's new Pimp Mobile that among other accoutrements has an overhead rolodex mounted above the windshield.

Very darkly tinted windows.

Easy access, darkly tinted windows. But we have more of the foreshadowing of Chuck just lamenting that we're this close to getting caught. Then they take the girls to the burger joint that they now own. And they're delighted by the gift of this investment that he's made on their behalf.

I was like, do you have any idea how hard it is to run like a franchise burger joint? Like, what are they gonna become managers of this thing? Like, I don't understand how that works, but I guess he's laundering their money through a burger joint.

It's an interesting choice. And then we cut to, lest we have forgotten about them, Richard Belzer and his compatriot, Cleon, yes. Who are beating someone up in what is clearly an ongoing effort to figure out who has moved in on their turf. So they are on the hunt. And then we get The Christmas Party and a clip that I almost requested, but couldn't bring myself to listen to again, because it is one of only two Latinos who are probably featured on screen in this film. Granted it's 1982, but it's New York City. And this movie is very white. And there is this very mixed message of the ladies, I shouldn't call them girls, although that's what they call them, have recruited the Latina member of their ranks to recite a gratitude poem with some unfortunately broken English to express what they're all feeling and their appreciation for what they've done for them.

I hit the 10 second skip button on that scene. Like it's very painful to me to watch.

Yeah.

Because even like, for example, like even like in more modern movies, like the Pitch Perfect movies, you know, the one Latina character is there to basically tell jokes about how horrible life is in Central America and to be mocked or to have jokes that are all about her English not being great. I just get so like just annoyed and like I just didn't even, I just didn't even watch that. You know, the moment Latina character started, you know, giving what seemed like a very sweet monologue, but with the broken English and I just, yeah, you know.

It's a choice and it's an unfortunate choice that Mars, the film that I think is well intentioned, but I think that is suffering from unconscious bias, let me say charitably.

Yeah, charitably. It's a movie of its time and it's got a bunch of questionable racial set. All the Blacks in the movie are the pimps or the enforcers. You know, everybody else is Lily White and this is the one Latina character. And again, the movie is so amiable and so just aweshooks Ron Howard, you know. I mean, look, it just takes me back to my, you know, I'm sure it does you too. It's like, it just takes you back to your childhood when there were just no Latino characters and you know, even as a Latinx person, you identified with the white characters, you know.

It was inconceivable that any of our three leads could have possibly been Latino when there's no reason they couldn't have been.

By the way, in a country that had just, you know, Chico and the Man had been a huge TV show previously in the seventies, you know, with Freddie Prinze Jr. and rather not Jr. with actual Freddie Prinze. So it's not like that didn't exist, but yeah, I just, you know what, look, Paul, it's funny. Like I had a friend once say to me, we were talking about romancing the stone. I was talking about how much I liked that movie. And he goes, well, don't, he goes, don't the like stereotypes of Latino characters in that movie bother you? And I said, dude, if that bothered me, I wouldn't watch movies, you know? So this is just, again, one of those things where I'm just like, fuck, okay. And just kept, kept moving along, you know?

It's chocolate town, Jake. Yeah. I want to mention really quickly that they are gifted. Billy is gifted a boo box that also is a tape recorder. So he's very excited by that. Chuck is given a very fuzzy pimp hat that he seems quite delighted by to receive and to wear. Then after the party, there's a bonding scene between the three of them and another kind of really great scene for Michael Keaton kind of opening up to them, to Belinda in particular, about their parents. And he talks about his mom and there's a really lovely aside that he kind of says to himself and he records to remind himself to call his mom to wish her a Merry Christmas.

There's also a really sweet scene following that where Henry Winkler shows them what he's done with his pimp money and it's that he bought his father a big tombstone. And you get the sense that Henry Winkler's father was actually a loving father and that the loss of his father is one of the things that made him kind of as messed up as he is now.

It's a great scene because prior we had met his mom but his dad wasn't there and we didn't really have an explanation but now we're filling in the gaps. But he kind of teases it and the audience about, you want to see what I spent my money on and they drive out to the cemetery and first Billy is like, you bought a cemetery? But yeah, no, he spent the money to buy his dad a bigger tombstone. And then it's very sweet and it's remarked on beautifully by Belinda afterwards where then Chuck and Belinda go back to his apartment and she has this great line where she says, you know, my father's alive and I don't buy him anything. Which I just delighted. And again, we're hearing that that's what friends are for instrumental, even as the scene is unfolding in a way that they're going to break the bounds of mere friendship.

But I think this is a really nice scene that also talks about the kind of puritanical nature of Chuck and you know, because Chuck basically confesses to Shelley Long's character that he has lust for her, which is like, how could he not?

Yeah.

But to him, that's a huge shameful thing. And then they kiss and they have sex and Chuck definitely gets the idea that Belinda is not faking it with him. They have a he has a big monologue about the movie Clute and how Jane Fonda's character fakes it in that movie. And she's like, I'm not faking it. But then she's going to go back to work.

Yeah, I was just to almost say, it's such a lovely meta moment where the aftermath scene, and then yeah, he asks out of the blue, did you ever see the movie Clute? And I just I just love that.

And then that whole and he explains, he explains that there's a scene where you realize Jane Fonda's character is faking it. It's kind of interesting how that's the point for this.

But yeah, so we're back at the morgue and Chuck arrives in the mirror image or kind of just evoking again, same shot through the translucent, you know, glass of the door. This high energy thing, we get this fake out where we think that might be Billy, but no, it's Chuck, who's basically has been Billy-gized by his now mutually professed love to Belinda. He has shown up three hours late. Now Billy is sort of assuming the Chuck role of like, where have you been? Like he's being the responsible one, but he has convinced himself. And again, this is a cautionary tale of the importance of communication that men should not assume things of women or impose expectations on women that are unreasonable. He unreasonably thinks that, oh, well, magically now Belinda is going to be with me and is going to quit her chosen vocation and is not going to be showing up today. But of course, they've had no such discussion and she's made no such decision. He's made this assumption and she shows up and challenges that assumption, I think very effectively and asserting that she has to earn a living. They have their first real argument that ends in hostile, nasty, nasty words.

Yeah, again, the man sort of spurning the woman for being a sex worker when he's part of the system and it's ridiculous. So then we get the big plot turn of the movie, which is that finally, while Michael Keaton is out recruiting some clients that he's going to bring back to the morgue, Henry Winkler, who is having a very, now he's very upset because his girlfriend has refused to stop being a prostitute. He is visited by Richard Belser and Cleon.

Although it's important to point out in a scene that is a very questionable product placement choice for the hotel Parker Meridian, Billy drives her to her clients.

Next appointment.

And then they have a conversation about how, you know, reveals that she thought they were in love, her and Chuck. And then he drives her back and she chooses not to go through to see that client. But then we get this great intercutting of Belser's character, Pig, and Cleon, who I've been remiss in naming the actor is Bajajola, show up at the morgue and they finally have caught up to the trail and are threatening the crap out of him while Billy is in this glorious 80s nightclub of our dreams. It's just like I want to live in this set for a while. It's just fantastic. And he sidles up to these two narcotics cops at the bar, not knowing their narcotics cops, and solicits them and brings them to the morgue conveniently while just as Pig and Cleon are waterboarding Chuck with a fire hose.

They basically stick the fire hose in Chuck's mouth and threaten to cut holes in the side of his mouth for the water to come out, and they open the fire hose. And just as that happens, the cops show up with Michael Keaton and they reveal that they're cops, and there's a shootout.

Yeah, in the morgue.

Now, here's something that happens that I think is it. So this is, you know, this is the big turning point of the movie, and the movie still has a fair bit to go, but this is the nadir of Chuck. He goes into prison.

Yeah, they get arrested.

He's been dumped by everybody. And he says, and again, this is one of the things that's so bothersome about movies like this, especially the 80s. Chuck is literally sitting on the floor of the prison cells. He's just been dumped by his fiancee. His life sucks. And he's like, this is the worst point of my life. And then another guy in the prison holds up a newspaper he's been cutting that now has all sorts of hearts on it, and he blows him a kiss. And then Henry Winkler's character says, oh, no, now I'm the lowest point of my life. Because obviously the worst thing that could happen to you is for somebody to think you're a, another guy to think you're attractive.

Yes.

There's this weird sort of homophobic joke right there. And it's like, oh, for God's sake, again.

And he appears to be Latino. And that seems to be the second Latino character appearing on camera. Prior to this happening, though, we get another delightful in retrospect cameo by the great Charles Fleischer, who would later be Roger Rabbit, who overhears Billy and Chuck in conversation and interjects.

Here's the thing about that. I feel like ever since we did Megaforce and there's that thing where Ace Dallas, Ace Hunter, whatever the fuck his name is, it says, you love him in red, you love him in blue, you love him in red, but you love him in blue. Like, there's always a moment in these movies that is just completely random, out of nowhere. And I think we need to start identifying the moment of Zen in every movie. And it is this cameo because... So Chuck says he'd rather be dead. And then this rando comes up to him and they have the following exchange.

So, I'd be better off, I'd rather be dead. You want to be dead? You want to be dead? You let me know if you change your mind. You'll be the first.

Okay then. So that just happens, not followed up on nothing. But basically, the characters have lost everything. But they're not going to go to jail because it turns out that the administration finds this entire incident very embarrassing and doesn't want to prosecute. But Billy, being the selfish narcissist that he is, wants to talk to the mayor about getting paid off to not talk about this, you know, and not make us think about this incident, right? So this is the part.

One very important thing though that happens.

Yes.

Charlotte, his fiancee, shows up. Presumably, we think to bail him out. He says that he thought she'd gone back to Indiana, but she has come back from Indiana not to bail him out, but to spit in his face.

Yes.

Through the bars of the holding cell. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, then we get to this conflict where Chuck just wants his old life back.

What I want is to go back to my old life the way it was before this craziness. I want my old life back. Please, Bill.

Chuck wants his life back. Billy is insisting that they make a stink, that they go to the mayor, that they try to get paid for everything they've gone through, especially because it's embarrassing to the administration and he wants to get his. And Chuck finally blows. Chuck wants his old life back. Billy is dressed in a tennis outfit. No, no. How do they get the tennis racket? Yeah, he just shows up.

He's been interrupting his tennis match to come have this meeting.

Billy shows up in tennis white.

Yeah, with the tennis racket.

With the tennis racket, which leads to them fighting and the following line, which I loved. Clip number 13, producer Brad.

You're not going to see the mayor. You are not going to make any demands. I'm going to kill you. You're going to play tennis with God.

So needless to say, Chuck breaks up with Billy. Everybody's broken up with. So at the end of this fight, we get the following exchange.

Everything that's bad that happened to me, you did. I don't want to see you anymore. I don't want to hear from you anymore. I don't even want to hear rumors about you anymore. Here's a good idea. Why don't you get a ticket on the first space shuttle and get out of here?

Well, the space shuttle was cutting its technology back then.

Yeah, exactly. I just thought that that was a fun bit of temporal.

I agree. I'm right there with you.

Temporal color.

Now, Chuck has been humiliated, arrested, broken up with his friend, he's broken up with his girlfriend, he's broken up with his fiance, and he has ordered a sandwich. There has been a running gag in the movie that he never gets what he wants, and he never sends it back because he's worried about making people angry. He's worried that the shuffle spit in his food. But then Vincent Schiavelli, a character actor we know from Ghost, he was the evil ghost in Ghost. He was one of the Penguin henchmen in Batman Returns.

He's in Buckaroo Banzai. He's in everything.

Yeah, so he shows up to deliver him a sandwich. And of course the sandwich has mustard on an egg salad sandwich. Chuck finally grows balls and tells this guy to bring him a new sandwich to get the mustard out. Vincent Schiavelli gets the mustard out by wiping it on Henry Winkler's door and handing him back the piece of bread. And then Henry Winkler, Chuck, our put-up-on character finally explodes.

You listen to me. Take it easy. You listen to me. I will never again eat a sandwich I did not order. I am sick and tired of being afraid. Bad jobs, bad sandwiches, neurotic girlfriends, no longer for this man. Do you understand? go home. And you... go clean off my door.

Magnificent.

And because every time there's a running gag, every time he comes to his apartment, the dog comes after him.

Yeah, his dog comes ballad-ing around the corner, out of nowhere, unmotivated, like there's no explanation of whose dog it is, where it's coming from, but this big, angry dog, every time he comes home, is chasing him to this door, and he scrambles to find his keys to unlock the door and get inside and shut the door in the dog's face. And finally, not this time. It's glorious, and it's just, it's such a great lesson in setups and payoffs, and double setups and payoffs. Or triple. Like, there's so many things in this movie tied to his character, his meekness, his submissiveness, that he's finally overcoming, and it's just great. It's hokey, but it's great.

And his big, heroic moment now is that Billy and Belinda have decided to go work at this bathhouse brothel, so Chuck is gonna go...

A private gentleman's club that charges $8,000 a year in 1982 for membership.

Yeah, which is quite a bit.

Yeah, so he marches down there with the normally subdued Burt Thackerack instrumental theme elevated into a triumphant march......accompanying him to seize his destiny.

Yes, which is basically rescuing Billy from being a towel boy at the brothel.

Yes, dressed as Tarzan...

.and rescuing Billy that. Can we play that?

Am I glad I found you? I've got to talk to you. Hey, I saw her first. No, actually, I saw her first. Remember the argument we had at the morgue? Yeah, and you were right. I was wrong. Are you done? Now listen, you were waiting for me to say something. Actually, you were waiting for me to say I love you, but I didn't have my guts then. I've got the guts now. I love you too. Come on, I'll show you how much. Listen, slime, you have exactly three seconds to take your hands off this particular woman.

That is not Chuck punching the guy who's accosting Belinda. It's him beating punch preemptively in the face. Forget it, it's just one of these great beats where this film will set up these cliches or these tropes and then it will subvert them. It will do the thing you're not expecting. And for fun.

John punching Chuck is kind of hilarious, but he still gets Belinda.

And then that is taught by Billy from a balcony, the rafters, whatever, again, in his Tarzan pool boy regalia. And we have established that we've seen him swinging on a vine previously to deliver towels to somebody in the pool. And we're expecting, oh, well, clearly he's going to swing on a vine down to his friend's rescue. There is no vine handy at this balcony. So he then just leaps off the balcony and face plants on the ground in front of them.

Which leads to the guy who runs the brothel. He's going to fire Billy. And so now Chuck has gotten Belinda. And even though he's gotten punched by her John, he's got her. And now it's his turn to defend Billy, his big hero turn. So let's go to clip number 16. This is kind of like Chuck's big moment about Billy.

Okay, Pits and you're fired. You know that suits him just fine. He's not a towel boy. He is an idea man. He couldn't find his asshole with a funnel.

By the way, I love that. You can find that. I use that almost daily. So now Henry Winkler is talking back to the pimp who runs the brothel, which leads us to clip 17 in which he makes up with Billy, but also threatens the guy who runs the brothel in another wonderful sort of turn. Please, producer Brad.

Remember the first time I met you, you said, all right, I'm gonna make a man out of you. Do you think I could have done all this without you? Then I'll what? First of all, you can't talk to my very good friend and the woman that I love like that. Now look, I know that you're a very powerful man. I know that you could break my back like a little toothpick. There's only one question I've got to ask. Is that a gun under your jacket?

Of course, the brother smiles and nods. Henry Winkler just pushes into a hot tub and then runs off with his friends.

Yes, they escape into the glory of Times Square.

The glory of CD, CD Times Square.

And Rod Stewart sings.

Yeah, and that's the end of the movie. And it's interesting because they're together as friends. Like, you know, they don't have an income. I mean, I guess they've got their pimping money and all of that, but it doesn't resolve anything other than they are now all three of them really great friends and Chuck has come forward for the minute. Dude, I mean, it's like talking about this movie. It's like, it's just such a sweet movie. Just kind of go with it.

Yeah, it is warm and fuzzy.

Yeah, for a movie about...

Yeah, exactly, for a movie about prostitution in a city morgue in Lurid, 1982, New York City. It is very warm and fuzzy. It's a very cozy movie.

And yet, it's only slightly less morally confusing than Pretty Woman, which...

Yes. Yes.

You know.

I was going to ask, can we take a moment of appreciation for the second AD on this film?

Yes, please. Yes, the second AD on this film is a gentleman named Hans Bindler.

Yes, who would go on to also work in the same role on Splash and Cocoon, but then would take a considerable turn in his career as a writer and producer on such a esteemed series as Star Trek The Next Generation, as Deep Space Nine, and a masterpiece, The Middleman.

Yes, Hans worked with me on The Middleman, a show that I created, and he had worked with me on a show called The Chronicle, which was a show that was created by the late, great Silvio Orta. And Hans was just a wonderful, wonderful guy. We had a blast. I worked with him twice. And he talked a lot about being an AD for Ron Howard, among other things. So yeah, big salute to Hans Beimler. AD turned wonderful writer and good friend, so kudos. And I did not spot that. You looked at the credits more closely than I did, Paul.

It popped out at me. As soon as the end credits started rolling, I was like, I recognize that name, because I'm a Star Trek geek and a Middleman geek, yeah.

The other interesting thing is Hans, a Mexican.

No kidding.

He's the other Latino in this movie.

Viva Mexico.

So, Paul, let's talk about the lasting cultural impact of this film. Look, obviously, Henry Winkler did not break out as a movie star after this movie, but it certainly showed that he was far more than the Fonz. I love what this movie did for me watching Henry Winkler and seeing him as an actor. It gave us Michael Keaton.

Yeah.

I mean, it really did give us Michael Keaton. On a silver platter. And there's a straight line between this character and Beetlejuice, isn't there?

Yeah. And so many things. It's such an incredible showcase for him. And it also gave us Ron Howard and Brian Grazer as a filmmaking duo who would become an incredible powerhouse in the industry. And also Gans and Mandel as screenwriters who would just kind of soar with success through the 80s into the 90s with just massive hits. And also introduced the world to Shelley Long in this great showcase that, you know, then she would later have this incredible run on one of the most successful TV shows of all time.

I believe that Shelley Long's movie career before this included the film Caveman, which I don't know if you've seen, but it's one of the few movies, one of the finer prehistoric comedies starring Ringo Starr, in which all the dialogue is in a caveman dialect that makes no sense.

Yes, I'm aware of it by reputation. I have yet to subject myself to that experience.

Well, thankfully it was not released in the summer of 82. Speaking of which, producer Brad, so we did not go see An Officer and a Gentleman, which is a good movie, but a bummer. And Forced Vengeance, was that the other movie we missed this weekend, Bradley?

Forced Vengeance with Chuck Norris. But before we do Box Office, I just want to add, in addition to Shannen Doherty, Kevin Costner and Charles Fleischer, Ola Ray is one of the women in the movie, and she was the girlfriend in Thriller.

Yes, in the Thriller, in the Thriller movie.

That's right.

Okay, Box Office, this finished number five for the weekend with 2.5 million. ET was number one, followed by Best Little Whorehouse, Officer in Gentleman and Young Doctors in Love. For the year, it was number 40. And of the movies that we've seen so far, it was between Blade Runner at 29 and The Thing at 43. And all time, it is number 3,708 and is just ahead of The Man with the Golden Gun and The X-Files I Want to Believe.

Well, I mean, The X-Files I Want to Believe is really placed much too highly in that list. But, wow, so I mean, this movie is kind of a flop, is what you're saying.

Well, it launched some careers, but didn't make a lot.

A box office disappointment.

Yeah, I think it found its life later on cable and running endlessly on cable.

Endlessly.

I didn't see this in the multiplex. I saw it on the movie channel endlessly, and I still remember lines from it. But it's sort of a forgotten movie, too. It's like sort of a movie that did the rounds on cable, then they just kind of vanished, you know? But again, very much an object of its time. So, producer Brad, what's on next week?

Next week, our next episode, we're going to Friday, August 6th, 1982. Two movies open on that day. The first is Things Are Tough All Over starring Chi Chin Chong, and the tagline on the poster is Chi Chin Chong Take a Cross Country Trip and Wind Up in Some Very Funny Joints.

Because they're stoners, because they smoke weed. Okay, great.

Option two, The Pirate Movie starring Christy McNichol and Christopher Anken.

There is one thing about The Pirate Movie that is an important fact. There is only one important memorable fact about that movie. Would you like to hear it?

Go for it.

So that movie was directed by a man named Ken Anakin, who had been a movie director for many years before that and made a couple of good movies, made a couple of really bad ones. And it was that man whose name inspired The Name of Anakin Skywalker.

Did not know that.

So there you go.

I'll just tell you, instead of giving a plot recap, the poster says, set sail for the musical comedy adventure of the summer.

Yeah, no, I don't know that I really want to see a comedy, an airplane style comedy remake of The Pirates of Penzance starring Christy McNichol and the guy from Blue Lagoon.

I remember seeing this movie.

Really?

And it's horrible.

It's horrible.

But not in a good, fun, entertaining way like Grease 2. It's just that. And after Best Little Whorehouse, I can't do that again.

I think we owe our audience a podcast where we're not just really obsessed. Yes. Producer Brad, we should discuss what to do.

Yes, I think we either need to take a family trip to the beach next weekend.

Or to the drive-in.

Or to the drive-in and see something we missed out on or hit the video store.

Well, I can tell you what else is still in the theater at this time in 1982. So, your other options that we haven't seen are An Officer and a Gentleman, Young Doctors in Love, The World According to Garp, Annie, Six Pack, Forced Vengeance, and then, you know, still at the bottom of the charts, but still chugging along, The Sword and the Sorcerer.

At the Dollar Theater. We could go see Sword and the Sorcerer.

Oh, oh, oh, I am, yes, yes.

It opened in, I think, April of 1982, and it's still making money throughout the summer.

Still chugging away and still making money.

Alright, Sword and the Sorcerer it is.

We're going.

No disagreement for me.

Let's tell mom and dad to load up the CommaLine pad. We're going to the drive-in.

Yes.

I'm very excited now about next week. So guys, see you next week in line at the multiplex. End of line.