SPEAKER_01 0:00

Does an audience of today have the attention span for a film like this? I I wonder that. I don't think Cassavetes would be would survive in today's cutthroat, lack of independent screen time.

SPEAKER_03 0:19

You're listening to the O Brother Podcast. Real Brothers, Real Talk. Welcome to the O Brother Podcast. I'm your host, Dan Smith, alongside me as always, my brother from the same mother, Mike Smith. One week away, one week away as of this recording, Mike, to head out to San Diego Comic-Con. And you and I have been looking at this schedule and for first timers in terms of like I know you've been there. Yeah. But you probably never had to like really worry about building a schedule for five days.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

And I mean, it is Well, early on I kept telling you because people were starting to send us things, and I said, just wait. Because I knew, you know, now there's what, 80 seven, but that's different.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

These are, yeah, but right. But those are right, right, right. I know what you're talking about. Yeah. But that's a conversation we'll have off air. We're going to San Diego Comic-Con is the point. So we're going to be there beginning preview night all the way through to the end of the event, which ends on uh what Sunday does it wrap up or Saturday? Sunday, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:24

Although it's it says like child uh workshops or something.

SPEAKER_03 1:29

Yeah, it didn't look like there's a whole lot going on on Sunday, but we'll be there nonetheless. And so if you're gonna be at San Diego Comic-Con, look for us in the crowd. We'll be somewhere. I don't know. This is a huge venue and there's a lot going on. And I don't think you and I are gonna be together for half of this because it's just there's too many things to cover and too many places to be. And they do that intentionally, of course, because they don't want like everybody going to one thing that's super popular and they can't fit anybody in there.

SPEAKER_01 2:00

How many events do you have are you signed up for?

SPEAKER_03 2:03

It's gotta be 60, 70, 80. Like there's there's a lot. Yeah. Many of them eighty. Many of them overlap there at the same time. So, you know, we'll have to get we'll get together once we're there and kind of coordinate better. But I'm also listening to a podcast, as I shared with you, about breaking down the schedule, and that's even overwhelming to hear that, because that's where you start hearing the tips on how early to go to this and that. And I'm like, oh, this is gonna be, we've gotta have to manage the expectations, keep the stress level low. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Well, Hall H on Saturday. There's just a window of just leave me alone. Don't, don't the seat's taken.

SPEAKER_03 2:49

Well, if you think you're gonna Yeah, you pretty and you know what I don't like is I heard apparently they don't clear the spaces out after each panel.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Right. I don't agree with that. No, I don't agree with that. Like, because that's the thing, you gotta get in early.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

I get it from a hang a logistical standpoint to turn all of that over and this and that, but it just makes it harder for people who go in and then you're there. You got in one room, some people will be in Hall H from the morning the whole day.

SPEAKER_01 3:20

Right. And and and some events roll literally right into each other. Like there's a Marvel, which I think is gonna be s mostly Spider-Man, but it rolls right into Kevin Smith. Yeah, you keep saying Kevin Smith. Are you talking about Kevin Feige or Kevin Smith? No, Kevin Smith. Oh, but you say that like Kevin Smith is like at the top Oh Kevin Smith is like the comic book guy. No, I get that, but okay, anyways. No, he's he's he's done this for years, and he's one of the most entertaining guys. You know, he'll talk about everything. And it's like a stand-up. It's like he does stand-up.

SPEAKER_03 4:04

Yeah, well, just just be prepared to be sitting in a a 6,000-seat room and be at the very back, and all you're doing is watching the screen. Like, that's probably what a lot of this is gonna be. It's not gonna be like there's people that have this down to a science in terms of how to camp out and get in the front. I don't see that happening as a couple of first timers, but we'll see how it goes. So, anyways, that isn't why people tuned in. But we did want to say, since this is going to be the last uh episode, this is actually gonna come out in a couple of days, we'll have this episode out. So this will be the last episode people will hear until we're back from Comic-Con.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

And then we'll do, you know, a recap episode and talk about the experience and we may do something from there, you know, depending on possibly what it's like.

SPEAKER_03 4:53

Maybe a little live stream from the Airbnb or something.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Yeah, it'll be too noisy at the convention center to do anything. But, you know, you can there's gonna be booths and stuff that we'll visit, and it's a lot of stuff. Your head's gonna be on a swivel. Yeah, yeah, we'll see how it goes.

SPEAKER_03 5:10

But not why we're here, not what we're here to talk about tonight. We're actually, you know, I find it interesting. Now, one thing I want to say that's kind of connected to our trip to San Diego, that I didn't mention on our last episode when we did a review of the original Rocky film from 1976, on its approaching its 50th anniversary, Sly just turning 80 and all of those things. Now, what I didn't realize is where the name Balboa came from, and I you may not even know that. He was at back at the time he was, I think, writing it when he was going through the writing process. There were times, as I recall, that he would he was talking about how he would go out. He was in California and he was in San Diego, and how he would go out at night and go on walks or whatever it was and go up to Balboa Park. See, that's where he didn't know the name. Yeah, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

He took that for the character. I literally used to go there to study every law school exam I ever had, I was on a bench in Balboa Park studying for.

SPEAKER_03 6:23

Yeah, I thought that was kind of a wild note that and this was from an interview that I watched with him talking about it.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:30

Now you and him have become close lately. Well, we talk about the engagement we get on the the episodes, and a lot of times we're talking about the engagement we get from listeners and viewers on the YouTube channel, and we put out a lot of social clips and so forth. And so one of the clips I put out from the Rocky episode, you know, I've just put them out. It's like the thing we do every week with the episodes to promote them. And lo and behold, I see this notification that Sylvester Stallone comments on one of the reels that we put out, which blew my mind.

SPEAKER_00 7:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:05

I'm like, this was like almost on his birthday. I'm like, of all the things he could be doing, and somehow he finds the time to multitask and send Little Old Us a comment. He sent, he actually replied to a couple of different posts, and he was really complimentary about the things that we were talking about in the clips, which was, you know, it was really a nice validation, I think, of the conversation and things that we were talking about.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

One of his comments was basically an affirmation of what we said. It was. It was, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:41

So I'm glad we kind of we did our homework.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

But then we did our homework.

SPEAKER_03 7:44

We got it, yeah, thank God. But here's what was more interesting, Mike, is I never expected there to be a connection between that episode and that conversation to this episode tonight, which is to review a John Cassavetti's film, Opening Night. And so what was now let me give me a minute here and let me let me sort of set this up. This is from myself. Yeah, we'll we'll get there. We'll get there. Mike's holding up the box set of John Cassavetti's the criterion box, five films. Right. We're only going to talk about one of those films tonight, which is Opening Night. Now, my first introduction to John Cassavetti's, because we should say that we've been talking about Cassavetes for a long time because you've brought him up over the years about, oh, we should do a film. We just kind of never circled around to picking one and leaning into to reviewing one of the films. And so as we were deciding finally to do one, uh, because you got me this beautiful box set that you just held up, and you know, we finally settled on it, said, Yeah, let's do one, add this back into the Criterion Review playlist that we've got out on our YouTube channel for those that want to check that out. We've done quite a number of those reviews already. But diving into the research on John Cassavetis and this film in particular, it shocked me to know that I was introduced to John Cassavetis without even realizing it. And so I haven't shared this with you. And so the film Gloria, which came out in 1980, which starred Jenna Rollins, who was, of course, married to John Cassavetis for a long time. She starred in this film Gloria, and it was odd because that came out, as I said, 1980. I was very young at the time, but I saw that film pretty much upon its release when it came out. You know, once it hit the TKBO. I stumbled on it. Yeah. And it struck me then, even as a younger person, for whatever reason, because there's also a young, young uh boy actor, a young actor, young character that's in it in that film with her. Anyways, well, I just now discovering that John Cassavetis had directed that film. I didn't even realize that at the time. And that wasn't, again, a detail that I was particularly interested in back then as a kid.

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Had you seen Rosemary's Baby? No. No, I hadn't seen that either. See, he I know him as much as an actor as I do a director. But he's only directed, he's he's kind of in that Kubrick world where he's only directed like 12 films. And Jenna Rollins hasn't been in 10 of them. Yes, yes. And she's been nominated for an Oscar twice. Neither one of them, this is like the list of people who should have an Oscar. Both of them. They do have honorary Oscars. That's right. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 10:47

But it's crazy that they didn't win for she was presented hers, I think, in 2015 at like the Governor's Awards or something. Yeah. And now it was two nominations she got for the for the Oscar, not three. Um two, as I recall, but it could be a third one.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Was one of them four for Gloria? I know it was for a woman under the influence. Woman under the influence. That's the one I expected her to win. I don't know if it was Gloria. You know what it probably was, is she was he directed her to two, but she was probably nominated for three.

SPEAKER_03 11:25

Maybe that's what it is, yeah. And then won the Golden Globe twice. So, but so that was the first introduction. Now, with Jenna Rollins, again, with Gloria, I don't know that I was really aware of her before that. And then for me, one of I think one of her finest performances in the latter part of her career was not the latter part. I mean, she was still acting right up until uh she passed in 2024, I think, was the film Once Around, which you know I've mentioned that many, many times. Great film. One of your favorites. Great film, uh, Richard Dreyfus. The late great Danny Aiello was in that film, and she starred opposite Danny Aiello. They were husband and wife in the film. Her performance in that, like it is in opening night, like it is in almost everything she's saying, she is she was a force in nature.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

It it's you know, oh it's it's amazing that you picked opening night because when I got to the five films, right, there's two others. Yes, two that are on criterion love streams, I'm holding them up, and husband.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

And I thought like opening night was would have been my fifth pick of which one to watch. Uh of course I would have said watch a woman under the influence first. Right, right. But then killing of a Chinese bookie is so iconic with Ben Gazara. Mm-hmm. And him, Ben Gazara, and Peter Falk, who does a cameo in opening night.

SPEAKER_03 13:05

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 13:05

Where you just see him standing there in a tuxedo.

SPEAKER_03 13:08

Yeah. So here's the here, you know, they have these little Yeah, cardboard kind of cardboard uh sleeves, yeah, inside the so this is the one for opening night for those that are watching. I'm holding it up. You see Jenna Rollins there on the on the cover. And so she's this renowned actress, she's a a stage actress, and she's as as the plot reads, she's teetering on the edge of a breakdown as she's counting down the days towards this big Broadway opening of this play. Now, I can't, I'm sure there's other things similar I can't think of off the top of my head, maybe you can, where you're this is like a play inside of a play. It's a play and a play that's been filmed.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 13:53

And a lot of things I didn't know about Cassavetis that I I know you would have been familiar with, but I really again this ties back to the Rocky episode, Mike. And I'm sure that Stallone was heavily influenced, as were so many, not just in the States, but around the world, especially in Europe. That Cassavetis, this like some people consider him to be the father of independent filmmaking. I had no idea this guy was like, you know, uh financing his films and the things, the lengths they were going to to get these films made. So talk a little bit about that part of his career.

SPEAKER_01 14:32

Yeah, talking specifically about opening night, it it came out the year after the killing of a Chinese bookie, which a lot of people consider his seminal work. Um, it it's it's really good. And there's uh an actor in there that's also was in the killing with Kubrick. It's very unusual. Remember the guy that shot the the guy who was in the horse race and the killing? He's really a weird cat.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

He's in two of Cassavetti's films at least. But to get back to what the point, opening night really was a dud. Right? It didn't make any money. So much so, like they pulled it.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

They pulled it.

SPEAKER_01 15:20

And it's because the killing of a Chinese bookie didn't do enough money for him to fully advertise it. So they would pull it out of the theater, wait till he got a little more money, then he'd put it back in the theater. But now he's looked at as like one of the great American directors. Period.

SPEAKER_03 15:43

Well, and a guy that seems like an artist that d never compromised.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

No. No, and that's why like he'd be like, he's like Orson Wells in some ways.

SPEAKER_03 16:01

Yeah, actually Bogdanovich, Peter Bogdanovich, who has a I I think you said he has a cameo in this as well with Peter Falk. And he there's an interview, it's a great interview with him, Ben Gazara, and Jenna Rollins on the Charlie Rose show back at the time at the time this came out on Blu-ray, Mike, this set. Wow. And so they're they're celebrating the release of the set, and they're all of course.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Which is back in like 2004 or five.

SPEAKER_03 16:30

That's uh I think it was 2004, yeah. And so they're reflecting on Cassavetis and um and they they talked about all the things that you just said as as to you know the way that they they had to scrimp and save and go act in this or that you know, play or whatever it was or a film to scrape up the money to to keep the next project.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

It reminds me when we talk to the the NELMS brothers, you know, they tend to do that. They'll wait and they'll they finance their own stuff, and they'll wait till they get a distributor that's right for them before they release something, which they did recently.

SPEAKER_03 17:13

Aaron Ross Powell Yeah, and and you know, these are not I mean, of course, these a lot of these films now are looked back on as classics and uh but but at the time, as you said, with with Opening Night when it came out, I mean, again, they had to pull it and they release it again, and you know, so And I don't know. When you watch the film, it's like nothing you've really seen before. And this is, I don't know, Mike, an audience of today, does an audience of today have the attention span for a film like this? I wonder that.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

I don't think Casavetti's would be would survive in today's cutthroat, lack of independent screen time. Uh I just don't think he would be he'd be setting up like a GoFundMe or something.

SPEAKER_03 17:59

Yeah, uh some Kickstarter.

SPEAKER_01 18:01

She liked it when he acked, when he just acted because when he took on a project that he wrote and directed, it would take him a year.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

If he just acted, it was 28 days, 30 days for a film shoot. This you can see how difficult it must have been in some of the shots. It's very Shakespearean with a play within a play.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

And I love the shots in opening night where he puts the camera in a place where you see the actor go off stage, and it's something, as somebody who's been in plays, it's something that's so kind of unique when you walk off and all of a sudden you drop the character, yeah, and you get a drink and you're talking to someone, and then you go back out.

SPEAKER_03 18:54

It's like Larry Sanders-esque. You know, it's kind of like Larry Sanders. Yeah, that is very interesting. And and and that's the thing. It's very striking when you immediately realize, oh, I'm watching a movie about a play and a play.

SPEAKER_01 19:10

It's very, it's very uh And she's very frustrated at this stage in her career. She's getting older. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 19:17

Wait, don't you wouldn't you say that's like the prominent theme here? Is she coming to terms with that?

SPEAKER_01 19:25

Right. Although her character wouldn't. Her character would say age has nothing to do with it.

SPEAKER_03 19:30

Well, and why is that? Because it's based on the the the woman that wrote the play in the film, Joan Blondell's character. Right. Right, is is uh yeah, you're right. She wouldn't. She she wouldn't agree with us. She wouldn't subscribe to that, no.

SPEAKER_01 19:45

What what happens in the beginning of the movie, a young fan that's trying to get an autograph and is really being aggressive, and she's this young 18-year-old blonde girl that's really cute, and she gets hit by a car and killed. Now there's schools of thought that that isn't that didn't never really happen. That was just in her head.

SPEAKER_03 20:11

I mean that school. As is Jenna.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Yeah, and and she just it and she tries to tell people, you know, no, I just making it up. It's just it's a it's like a make-believe friend. But nobody's believing her. And she has to keep kind of going back to it. And this film, back when it came out, it was criticized heavily for that character because Casavetis did not make it clear. Was that a figment of her imagination? Was it a real person?

SPEAKER_03 20:45

Well, that's the beauty. That's that's the art in it, right? Is I don't want to, I don't want to need that spoon fed to me. And it leads for night conversations like this. And now, so yeah, she's coming out of one of the performances of the play, which they're doing, I don't know where they're doing it leading up to the big Broadway premiere, but wherever it is, wherever the theater is, is out back as they're coming out. I mean, she basically Jenna Rollins plays Myrtle Gordon, is the name of her character. So Myrtle's coming out with the other cast, but she's the lead, she's the star here, and she almost gets accosted by this fan that you're talking about, this young woman played by Laura Johnson. And the girl's name's Nancy, and she's really sort of, it seems like maybe she's got something going on and you know, whatever. She's really all over her. I love you, and this is like kind of stand kind of moment. But so as they're driving off in the rain, as you described, there's this accident where the girl runs out and she's trying to follow the car until she can't follow it anymore, ends up getting hit by a car. Now, we don't really see her to be technical. Like we don't see her officially pronounced dead at the scene. Right. She's laying there lifeless. Technicality. Right. Right. Which can help support that school of thought that might say us all of this is in general in his head. Now, I would say I would buy that, yeah, that accident happened, the girl died, but this her seeing her throughout the rest of the film in her mind, like in her mind. Clearly, Casavetis makes that clear because she's speaking to her, but then there'll be another character in the in the scene that sees her talking to a wall. Like there's nobody there.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

She was in the bathroom at one point, and Ben Gazaro walks in and says, Are you talking to yourself? Yes. Are you okay? He's like trying to figure it. Are you practicing lines? Right. He doesn't get it.

SPEAKER_03 22:49

Now, Mike, here's where I went with this. Okay. The reason that I think the whole thing could be explained as being made up, that it never happened, is because I wondered, and this is maybe deep deeper than Cassavetti's ever even intended. I don't know if he would have ever admitted it anyways, you know, is was that was that Myrtle, Jenna Rowland's character Myrtle, as a young person. Mourning her younger self. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I walked away with thinking she's actually see, because the character does kind of resemble her as a younger person. And you know, Jenna at this point is about almost 40, I think, maybe in this movie. She's about 40 years old, I think, at this point in her career. So that that's what I took away from it. There was kind of a figment of her imagination symbolizing her struggle to come to terms with age. She's aging.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

And I I've come to that same Is that where you stand? I I don't know if I stand there now, but I've seen it so many times that that has run through my mind. Is she is that her? Is she looking at herself as a younger?

SPEAKER_03 24:07

Fascinating. This came out Christmas Day 1977 in the States. So to still be feeling that way, fit pondering those things. I mean, I think that's that's a testament to the power of the film. Now, Casavetis, and maybe you can talk about this being more familiar with his larger catalog, because I'm sure you've seen every one of his films, is the realism that he portrays in the film. And and and not just from the look of it and the performances, but like talk about the fact that the audience that's in the theater watching this play, they're all people they like sent out a all call, hey, if you want to show up, and right these are.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

She's making things up at some like she's saying, I shouldn't be getting slapped. He shouldn't be hitting me. She's having trouble connecting with the character. Right. And it's so funny because Ben Ghazar is like, what? Slap me. Go ahead, slap me. You know, it's it's not it's not hurting. You just use your fingers, and then as Gazar is walking out, he slaps Cassavetti. Yes. And you can tell by the look on his face. He he didn't know that was coming.

SPEAKER_03 25:40

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

And then she goes, they start kind of improvising, and they she goes totally off book. She shows up opening night, she's totally drunk.

SPEAKER_03 25:54

Okay, you're fast-forwarded at the latter part of the film.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

I'm fast-forwarding a bit, but it's the same scene because it's the same play. But she decides, and no director would put an actor like that on stage. There'd be an understudy. She could hardly stand up. She could hardly stand up. She's literally falling down in the hallway. But it's so genuine the response from the crowd at what they're doing that they're kind of, you know, you can tell they're making it up as they go along.

SPEAKER_03 26:28

Yeah, now Ben Gazara talks about I mean, his his explanation was there wasn't as much improvisation as people might think that there was. There certainly was, but I don't think Casavetti's was a big into rehearsal. No. You know, like they certainly, you know, it wasn't like a Kirby or enthusiasm where there was not a script and anything like that. Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

Right? It's not But that's a good, that's actually a good comparison. Choice to compare. There's kind of an outline.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 27:01

And then they play within the outline, and they're such good actors. Yeah. They can pull it off.

SPEAKER_03 27:08

Well, it's so much so, it's, you know, when I think about there's a scene in the film where her and Cassavetis, Jenna and Cassavetis are their characters, are having this dialogue back and forth, and it's really quirky. And it's there's times when you're laughing and you're like, am I supposed to be laughing at this right now? It's it's really weird the way he does this throughout the film. It's like, is this a serious moment? I don't know what's going on here. Right. And I think that speaks to that realism and just the way he liked to keep things off balance, not only for the audience, but for the performance as well, to kind of keep it fresh. And but there's these mannerisms, these gestures that Jenna's character is making when she's trying to talk to him and they're having this disagreement. It right. There's like this kind of like he's throwing punches at her. Now that she says, didn't know that was coming. A lot of that was improvised. But like some of these gestures, I went, I haven't seen a woman under the influence yet, but I've seen some chunks of it. And yeah, and the same gestures she's making in that film. So it's just interesting, some of the recall in the in the performances, you know.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

Yeah. Knowing Cassavetes means you know Peter Falk means you know Ben Gazar. They all went to acting school together. They're all thick as thieves. The three of them were heavy, heavy drinkers. And really, it's why Cassavetes died at a young age. He was what, 59, I think.

SPEAKER_03 28:45

Yeah. Incredible.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

And it was basically liver. His liver went because of all the drinking. And you can see it on their face. I mean, I'm sure you watched the interview um on opening night between Ben Gazara and Jenna Rollins.

SPEAKER_02 29:02

Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:03

And he's having trouble talking. You know, that's he's only got a few more years left. Well, but that had to do with smoking. Right. He was a big smoker. Right.

SPEAKER_03 29:13

Yeah, this was a different time back then, of course. And and uh yeah, Casavetis was born in 1929. He died in 1989, as you said at the age of 59. It was crazy, but yeah. Also, I mentioned that they were married, they got married in 1954 up until his death. Yep. In 1989. Yeah. And, you know, like you're pointing out, they tend to work with a lot of the same folks. That's kind of small group of thieves, as you called them. Casavetti's obviously writes and directs the film. We've we've talked about Jenna Rollins. I did want to mention a couple of other folks. Paul Stewart is in this. John Toole, Mike, talk about this character, Gus, who is this he real tall, handsome looking guy that plays a part in the play. And this was his first film. Right, because what what did he do? He was a teamster. Yes. This guy. And he was he was awesome to watch.

SPEAKER_01 30:12

Yeah. And and in that sequence where she's so drunk, he's literally carrying her around the stage because if she went out the way she was, she'd be tripping and falling, and he's walking her from one character to the next. It's really a fascinating kind of performance.

SPEAKER_03 30:33

Yeah, there's a lot going on here. But I think, you know, again, the central the main plot, again, is is Jenna's character. I think, again, coming to terms with her own, you know, even mortality at point. She just seems very, you know, you think she's just having a complete meltdown. She may be having, you know, maybe she's struggling with some mental illness, and she's clearly drinking heavily.

SPEAKER_00 30:59

Right.

SPEAKER_03 31:00

She's taken swigs right before she comes out to perform scenes from the play. And there's a guy, you know, the guy backstage, the stage master or whatever you call him. He's like, you know, giving her uh one of the props she needs, and then uh he'll take out a bottle from his coat and she'll take a swig and go out. It's just kind of crazy. You know what I meant to mention earlier, Mike, when I talked about the film Gloria, that was by unknown unknowingly, you know, that was my introduction to Cassavetti's. Well, you know who did the score for that film? Was none other than Bill Conti, who did the Rocky score. So it's just a small world. The saying the universe is wise, like it, I think that's there's no coincidence there.

SPEAKER_01 31:46

And their mothers are both in the film. And there's two films where Jenna Rollins' mother plays her mother. Okay a woman under the influence is one of them. Now, what would what were they playing in this? Would I recall Seance? Yeah. They were side characters in the seance. There's a seance seat. But both their mothers are in it, which is, I think, fascinating. Her brother is in it as well. Now, were you familiar with Joan Blondell's work before this? Okay.

SPEAKER_03 32:17

I would think you would have been, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:19

Yeah, because she did some film noir.

SPEAKER_03 32:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

And, you know, if you see her picture on IMTV, it's still from 1929, I think. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 32:29

Long, long resume that she had. Now, certainly there were other actresses at that time, strong female leads, but Jenna Rollins has to be one of the standouts in her entire career. The again, I haven't seen every one of her films, but all the films I've seen, she's so she's so tough. She's so uncompromising. She can be emotional, she can be sweet, she can be funny, she can be, she's so versatile in all of her films. I mean, it's just uh so powerful to watch her on screen.

SPEAKER_01 33:04

And, you know, a woman under the influence, which got her a golden globe. I don't know how she doesn't win the Oscar for that. You think at the beginning of it, it's you know, she's under the influence of alcohol or drugs. It's not. It's mental illness. Mental illness, yeah. And that's what that film really is about.

SPEAKER_03 33:25

Convince people that they need to see this. Why do I need to see Opening Night by John Casavetis, Mike?

SPEAKER_01 33:31

You know, I would actually tell people to see some of his earlier works first. Like See a Woman Under the Influence or Well, that's what's nice about this box is they they lead up to Opening Night is so Opening Night is the l latest of the film.

SPEAKER_03 33:49

And I think I'll be honest with you, that funnily enough was one of the reasons that I selected it because it's just the way it came out of the box in my hands. I wasn't analyzing the dates. I just said, oh, let me start with this one. And also, to very quickly to point out, this is one of the biggest booklets I've ever seen in a Criterion release before.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

It's incredible. I have a couple of books about Cassavetes that are buried somewhere.

SPEAKER_03 34:15

But okay, you would say, you know, check out some of his earlier works, but why land on this one? What's great about opening night?

SPEAKER_01 34:23

Well, I love it because it's so if you like acting or have any interest in acting, this is like, oh my god, this is like a, you know, um, it's like a a a film class. A master class. Yeah. Yeah, a masterclass.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:42

And the way he shoots it, the way he gets the angles, the way he's, you know, the he plays with the audience. Just there's so many things about it that's fascinating. It's hard for me to look back at some of the older reviews that are kind of harsh about it when it's such again, he's he's done like he's directed 12 films, and every one of them are good.

SPEAKER_03 35:10

Well, there's a good transition to the ratings. We always comment on IMDB. We always comment on Rotten Tomatoes. Now, IMDB scores pretty low, 69. And but Rotten Tomatoes, you know, again, for what what what stock you put into that, 96% from the critics. Not a surprise there, 90% from the audience, actually.

SPEAKER_01 35:31

That's good. That's that's higher than I thought.

SPEAKER_03 35:34

Yeah, I thought you'd be surprised by that particular one. Now, I will say, this is a very long film. It's two hours and 24 minutes. Like it's long, but uh again, Jenna Rollins, her performance alone will keep you riveted. Now, and that's to say nothing about the power of the other performances. Everybody in the film is fantastic. All of the supporting and you know, Ben Gazarra is great. Remember, you remember we used to why did we think Ben Gazaro was dead ten years before he was at? You remember like when he was in Roadhouse, and we're like, well, that can't be right. You remember this whole thing with dad at the time about Ben Gazaro? What would you remember?

SPEAKER_01 36:12

I think there was some confusion with him. There's a famous film, Mona Lisa. Uh-huh. And I can't think of the actor. He was in Who's Afraid of Roger Rabbit? Can you think of his name? The lead? The lead guy?

SPEAKER_03 36:25

Yeah. The guy. It'll come to me at once we read.

SPEAKER_01 36:29

He died and he was often confused with Bob Hoskins. Bingo. See, you you always come up with part of it and I finish it. Exactly. But yeah, I think there was some confusion when Bob Hoskins died. People thought it was Ben Gazar or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 36:47

Something like that, but okay. But yeah. So, yeah, I the we talk about the ratings, uh, the length of the film, but but again, the performances, it's riveting enough because you really, it's like nothing else I'd seen before, you know. And so if you're, you know, if you're looking for something that's a change of pace, and you're looking something that's very character-driven, heavily character driven, and you're looking to to see one of the finest actors, actresses of all time, frankly.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

Right? Like when I think of her, I think of Merrill Street. Like the two of them, to me, uh are like bookends.

SPEAKER_03 37:25

Jenna Rollins is just, she was absolutely an amazing actress and amazing talent. You know, born out of the stage herself. I mean, you read up on her career, it's quite fascinating. But but they're all great. Again, Ben Gazara, Joan Blondell, you know, all the other cast are just wonderful. And Cassavetti's himself. I mean, he's in the thing, of course.

SPEAKER_01 37:47

So you know, I'm a big Hitchcock guy. And there's a great Hitchcock show with Cassavetis. He's he did like three or four of Hitchcock presents. And there's one where he waits for this guy to leave and kidnaps his wife, holds her hostage while he's he's he just escaped from a prison. And the whole time he's talking with her, and they're, you know, he's making her, you know, the phone would ring, and he says that, you know, he tells her what to say. Turns out the twist, there's always a twist with Hitchcock. Sure, yeah. The woman is deaf. She's reading his lips, and at the very end, that's what trips him up. Is she he says something on the phone, and they realize she wouldn't have said it. She can't hear.

SPEAKER_03 38:39

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

Why is why is she talking on the phone?

SPEAKER_03 38:41

Yeah, that's why.

SPEAKER_01 38:42

And the other thing I gotta point out, John Cassavetes was considered for Tom Hagen.

SPEAKER_03 38:48

For Godfather. And The Godfather. He would have been excellent as well. Yeah. Not that Duval wasn't. Now we did, we we did talk about Cassavetes when we did the Criterion Review on the Killers. You remember the remake? Because we touched on the what was it, 1964? Was that the remake? Remember we did both.

SPEAKER_01 39:10

46 and 64. The killers, right? That's right. That's right. He acted in the in the latter one.

SPEAKER_03 39:15

That's right. That's right. Sanji Dickinson. Correct, correct. And uh so, you know, I that I remember talking about him at that time. But again, I know that you've been a longtime admirer of his work, and um, I really there was so much about him that I I didn't know in terms of this independent filmmaking and the way he, you know, the lengths they went to to get the the films done. It's quite it's quite fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

This is one I've been telling you. Hey, we gotta we gotta crack into Casavetis. And when I finally bought you this, the reason I bought you this box set is because they just released A Woman Under the Influence separately, and it's on Blu-ray. So, and if you see his other films like Chinese Bookie, there's no reason for a 4K of that. Yeah, the killing of a Chinese Bookie. That that's my favorite of Shadows, Faces.

SPEAKER_03 40:11

I mean, this is different. This is all great. Yeah, this is this is the collection to have for sure. And so I don't know. I mean, we should probably, you know, uh dive into each one at its and just review them all, quite frankly. That would be fun to do.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

But again, his latter work, you know, love streams, and then husbands, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:33

Yes. It was funny because in the interview with Ben Gazar and Jenna Rollins on Charlie Rose, uh, yeah, and and Peter Bogdanovich, who was in that interview too, he hadn't seen Shadows Yet, which I believe was his that was his very first feature film, I believe. Shadows.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Oh, I know early. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:52

But so again, you'd say start out with the earlier work, but what's the selling point on an op on opening night again, just to drive this home?

SPEAKER_01 41:01

Again, I think, you know, it's very much it's this right here. Yeah, it's her. It's a it's a masterclass of being an actor and how good uh somebody can be and how convincing and just fancy.

SPEAKER_03 41:17

And to watch Cassavetti's himself acting opposite her in this is just to know that the what their relationship was and it's there's just so much going on. It's it's it's really fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

I'd love to be a fly on the wall in their in their house growing up.

SPEAKER_00 41:34

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

I mean, it was probably constantly talking about art and and film.

SPEAKER_03 41:42

Oh, I would imagine, yeah. I would imagine so. But fantastic film. I'm glad that I've finally cracked the seal on this this box set. Great box set.

SPEAKER_01 41:51

It's half price right now.

SPEAKER_03 41:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Their cards are noble and on uh Amazon.

SPEAKER_03 41:56

Their kids are in the business too. You know, Nick Cassavetis and But there you go. There's the the at least the first of uh perhaps many Cassavetes reviews to come, but this one's in the books. It's another, again, part of our criterion, which you know, we've spoken about there's always the supplemental material, this great booklet that comes with it that you you can read through, and just some of the finest films of of the 12 that he's directed, uh, anyways. So this is uh uh definitely a strong recommendation to pick this one up box set releases.

SPEAKER_01 42:29

And if you go to the Criterion website, people will know the Criterion truck or the closet. The closet.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

If you click on just the picks, almost every other person has Cassavetes in there as one of their picks.

SPEAKER_03 42:47

And there's endless interview. If you go down a rabbit hole on YouTube of Cassavetes and you see, you know, Quentin Tarantino talks about Martin Scorsese, he talks about John Cassavetes. Yeah, Sarcese is a big Cassavetes guy. And Bogdanovich, I think I was trying to make this point earlier and I got sidetracked, was that he was saying in that Charlie Rose interview that it was him, it was Cassavetes and Orson Wells. They were the only two people that were financing their own films in that way.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

And they were both difficult to work with. You know, I think what's that? Just ask Peter Falk. Right. So I don't want to sugarcoat it either, but Bogdanovich was really close to Orson Wells. He finished his final film for him. But um yeah, he knew both of them really well.

SPEAKER_03 43:38

Well, thanks for pushing it. I'm glad we finally got to it. And like I said, now, you know, maybe a woman under the influence, or we just back it up and maybe go in in order, start with shadows and then just make our way up, you know. But that's gonna, that's gonna that's gonna wrap it on opening night. It's great. Again, 1977, you got Jenna Rollins. That's really all you need to know. Directed by John Cassavetis, written by John Cassavetis. Enough said. So this is a great one. Highly recommend it. Um, again, Mike and I are gonna be at San Diego Comic-Con. Uh, by the time you you're listening or watching this, we'll be less than a week away from from our uh trek out there. So we try to bring you as much coverage as we can from there. There's like tons of restrictions and things. So we'll we'll do what we can, but we'll certainly, at the very least, have a uh an in-depth recap episode when we get back from that that trip. But Mike, anything else to say about opening night before we wrap this one up?

SPEAKER_01 44:32

No, like I said, it it wouldn't be the first recommendation of mine of a Cassavetti's film. I think the killing of a Chinese bookie will hook some people in first because it's mob kind of related. But any of these five films are masterworks.

SPEAKER_03 44:50

Yeah. These and his five Chinese brothers. Philip Baker hall from Seinfeld reference for those that know.

SPEAKER_01 44:57

Oh, by the way, Seymour Cassell. Seymour Cassell, yeah. Had a cameo and that's where you see him. And for people who don't know him or or don't know that name, he's in a lot of Wes Anderson films. Yes. And he won an Academy Award, I think, for one of Cassavetti's or was nominated at least.

SPEAKER_03 45:16

Yeah, it had a note there somewhere. I don't know. Uh yeah, yeah. Seymour Cassell, Peter Falk. Yeah, we mentioned, we covered them all, yeah. Well, it's a great one. So there you go, folks. Opening night criterion. You can get this. Mike says you can get this whole box set of John Cassavetti's five films half off right now. $62. It's a steal. Yeah, that's a from what you're getting here, that's incredible. It's a steal. Not endorsed by the Criterion uh collection.

SPEAKER_01 45:42

But we wish we'd get into that uh closet. The closet, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:47

You'd never get Mike out of that closet. You got your own criterion closet over there. What are you talking about? I know Mike's Criterion room. All right, it's gonna do it for another episode of the Old Brother Podcast. I've been your host, Dan Smith. Long time as always, my brother from the same mother, Mike Smith, and we will see you next time.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

Bye, everyone.