SPEAKER_00 0:00

In the SNL sketch, it's him going to Santa's workshop, motivating the elves. Put that cocoa down.

SPEAKER_02 0:11

And Seth Myers is in it, Rachel Dratch. It's funny too, because remember his character's name and the parody on SNL? I don't. Winter's Breath.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

You're listening to the O Brother Podcast. Real Brothers, Real Talk.

SPEAKER_02 0:33

Welcome to the O Brother Podcast. I'm your host, Dan Smith, alongside me as always, my brother from the same mother, Mike Smith. Welcome tonight, Dan. We have a gift tonight to give. We do have a gift. We we don't always agree on the podcast, but this is one where I know we're in full agreement on this particular film. Mike, before we get into this, tell me, tell the the viewers and the listeners a story of a little visit we made to a car salesman here in Florida. Can you tell that story and how that went? Why, because he was a salesman. It's relevant to the story, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:14

It's gonna help me lead into this. You you were looking to buy a new car.

SPEAKER_04 1:19

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

And I was there to kind of negotiate coach or negotiate. And this poor guy got me in just one of my moods, and I just shredded him, you know, down to the nickel. And got to the point where he literally was crying. And I had no, you know, he had come on with the hard sell. Like, you know, if you think of selling, car salesmen are a special breed. Right? They come on strong. What's it gonna take for me to get you to drive this off the lot today? Blah, blah, bright? We've all heard it.

SPEAKER_03 2:02

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 2:03

Well, I just went attack mode on this guy. And he was a big guy, much bigger than me. He could have taken me out easily. And he said, you know, what you know, what about me and my family? I said, Well, this is the profession you have chosen.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Yeah. Yeah. He said, Well, I gotta eat. I gotta feed my he said, Well, that's your problem. That's not my problem.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

I was like, My problem is the sticker price. Yeah, I was brutal in those days. And that was when, you know, you had the sticker price. The sucker price. They had an extra sticker they added on.

SPEAKER_04 2:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

You know, and I was like, I'm not working. We're gonna start from the sticker price, not the sucker price. And we're going down from there.

SPEAKER_04 2:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Yeah, it just it's always a great memory because I was just sort of a fly in the wall, even though I was in the room at the time that that conversation was happening. And it was like an out-of-body experience for me. Yeah, but he was, you know, like you said, put on the hard cell, and then he was given the sob story. It's like, well, this is this is the career you chose. It's not my, you know. Anyways, there's more to that story, too, that we won't get into tonight. But, you know, there's a whole returning of a check, perhaps, and a returning of a vehicle. It's a whole thing. But this is a career, you know, and a lot has changed right since those days. Like with the advent of CarMax and just across the board, you don't really find that too much, unless you go into like a used car lot, you know, that's just sort of like mom and pop type of deal. Maybe you're gonna get into some of that, but it's changed quite a bit. But this is a career. I I don't care what you're selling, widgets, whatever it is, I don't have the stomach for it, I don't have the interest in it, I don't have whatever that thing is that you that you need in order to beat like lack of scruples, to be successful in a sales career, like at the top of your game.

SPEAKER_00 4:09

Right, right. If you're talking traditional sales, but I always make the argument we're all salesmen, salespeople. Sure. Whether it's yourself that you're selling or a skill that you have.

SPEAKER_04 4:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

I every class I start, college class that I teach, I tell them, you are buying a product, and I am delivering that product to you. If I don't deliver the product satisfactory, you should let somebody know about that. I was basically challenging them to call me out. Yeah, and you've had a lot, you had a lot of students over the years uh trying to cash in the rebate and the ch and and never, you know, never ever did I have one student try to go to the dean about me or whatever.

SPEAKER_03 5:05

Well, and you know Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_02 5:09

Paid him off. All right, so th we're we're talking about Glengarry Glenn Ross. Now this movie, it's it's it's sales is probably the least important storyline here in this whole film when you really boil it down in terms of themes. But obviously it's about these real estate four real estate guys, and they're they're they're basically pitted against each other in this competition that comes up. And I'll have you talk about this this seat, this very famous scene in the film, which wasn't in the play, right? And so, but anyways, just to back up for a second, so Glengarry Glenn Ross comes out October 2nd, 1992, directed by James Foley. Now, we had done a really deep dive on a special edition of James Foley's film At Close Range, which the connection here is that Al Pacino, who stars among other heavyweights in Glengarry Glenn Ross, loved At Close Range and was looking to try to do something with James Foley. And you can probably go more into that story here to set it up.

SPEAKER_00 6:21

Yeah, because James Foley, we find out when we did our research on At Close Range that Sean Penn had championed that film for five years. Well, Al Pacino did the exact same thing, went to the exact same guy, and what happened was somebody got the rights from Mammoth for a million dollars, which back then was a lot of money. David Mammoth. David Mammoth, who's the playwright. This is a Pulitzer Prize-winning play that also won a Tony Award for Joe Montana, who's not in the film, but very famous because he portrayed Ricky Roma, Al Pacino's character on Broadway.

SPEAKER_02 7:12

And Joey Zazzo and Godfather III, which if you haven't seen it yet, go and watch or listen to our episode on why you should love The Godfather III. Good.

SPEAKER_00 7:20

But I found it interesting that Pacino, like Penn, was the the one that got this going. He literally took James Foley to a Broadway show to watch Kevin Spacey because he thought Kevin Spacey would be a great Williamson. Was Spacey in the early Broadway version? No, no, no, no. He was on it was a completely different play. I see, I see. But Pacino thought he would be perfect for the office manager that has to manage these egos.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

Right. Now, Jack Lemon, the great, the late great Jack Lemon who plays Shelley Sheldon Shelley the Machine Levine in this film. Do you know who who was up for that role? Not up for the role, but was there was there was discussions being had. Well, there's so many people that played it, including Al Pacino. Mm-hmm. Well, subsequent to the film, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Yeah, subsequent to the film, Pacino went back and did it on Broadway.

SPEAKER_03 8:28

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:29

And the guy who plays James Link, J Jonathan Price, Sir Jonathan Price, he wound up playing Ricky Roma, and Pacino played Shelly Levine. But yeah, throw a name at me.

SPEAKER_03 8:44

De Niro.

SPEAKER_02 8:46

So Al and and Bob De Niro were, you know, talking about doing this. Is one of the opportunities they almost had to be on screen together that never happened, of course, until we got heat. And uh so I didn't know that. I I, you know, in some of the research here, I discovered that it was actually an interview with Pacino and De Niro talking about it. And Pacino was the one that was recalling how the Glengarry-Glen Ross film came to be.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

So Yeah, it's interesting because you run down the cast, you got Jack Lemon, you got Al Pacino, Alan Arkin also played it on Broadway after the film. River Oaks? Yeah, River Oaks. I can't sell that stuff. I gotta tell you a story later on about a version of this play that I did in college that I don't think I've ever told you about.

SPEAKER_02 9:38

Why would you not tell me that?

SPEAKER_00 9:39

I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

Is it that horrible a performance?

SPEAKER_00 9:43

Well, I was not excited about it. And it was I put I got cast. I had already been cast, and the directors, the student directors, have to direct a play. And what as an actor, a student actor, you have to audition and you have to do one play. I was asked to read for another part, and it happened to be Glengarry Glenn Ross. I got cast as George, which is Alan Arkin, and I was so disappointed, but the student directors had to cut it down to an hour. And when you cut it down to an hour, George is a pretty big character, I found out. And I thought, and the way David Mammoth writes, David Mammoth, if you don't know him, he has a specific cadence and speech that he he writes. It's right there. Every er, um, uh is written. There's a lot of things.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

But that's fine. But boil it down to some filler words.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

It goes so fast.

SPEAKER_02 10:58

Those are there's a rhythm to it.

SPEAKER_00 11:00

There's a rhythm to it. And if you miss an uh, it throws the whole rhythm off.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Right, right. Let's get further down that the cat. You started to talk about, I mean, you've listed a lot of the principal cast here, Pacino, Jack Lemon, Alan Arkin. You haven't mentioned Ed Harris yet. Jonathan Price, you mentioned Sir Jonathan Price, uh, Bruce Atman, who uh Altman, rather, who plays a character named Mr. Spannel, who's it's pretty it's a pretty uh significant scene in the film. Right. And Kevin Spacey, uh, you talked about the character of Williamson, and you mentioned Spacey earlier, and then Alec Baldwin, who, again, this his part, which is about seven, eight minutes in the film, it's probably one of the most memorable sequences in the film, and it wasn't in the play, it was written for him for the movie.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Right. And it's interesting because he was cast as a different character. And it was a character that wound up getting totally cut from the play.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

Well, I thought there was a potential that he might play Ricky Roma, but you know, Al Pacino. He wanted to. Right. But Pacino Pacino went off to make Sea of Love. Right. And but it was still his role to give up, and that just never happened. Ultimately, they were able to make the deal.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

So And he plays a character called Blake. We don't know that. We we never learn that unless you Yeah, Baldwin, you mean.

SPEAKER_03 12:36

Yeah, Alec Baldwin. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

But I've done that monologue many times. And one thing I have to put an alert out for people that I'm recommending this to because I think everybody should see it, is the language is ferocious.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

Well, and I think that's one of the major reasons that the film was, while it was a critical success, it did not, it was not a successful film in terms of box office standards. It didn't even break even. It didn't even come close to that. It made like $10 million on a $12 million budget. So it was it was not a successful film in that sense. But I think that's one of the things that hurt it. Is a lot of the blue language, it it it doesn't, it doesn't even come close today to hold a record for like number of F-bombs. But at that time in 1992, you know, he's talking like 130 some odd. There's, you know, there's there's debates over what the actual number is, but it's up.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

There's an interview with Joe Montaigne about doing the language on Broadway. That even for Broadway, it was brutal. He said he didn't think the C-word had ever been used on Broadway before.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

You're right.

SPEAKER_00 13:48

And he heard gasps when he said it.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

Yeah, it's at the end, it's one line by Pacino in the film.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

And it's interesting, Dan, that you know, there's the controversy with Kevin Spacey, and Pacino takes him down verbally in the film, much like the story I told up front, but he uses a lot of homophobic language, calling him a fairy and other things like that. And it's kind of a weird irony that that you know that his life kind of played out.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

Well, I don't know. I mean, uh you know you mentioned that I was going to talk about Kevin Spacey because he's he's coming back somewhat into the conversation. He was just on Bill Mars podcast. And, you know, again, we've often said on the podcast, to us, anyways, to us, it's a matter of separating the art from the artist, right? We've talked about a lot of we reviewed numerous films on the podcast, and some of those films and TV series, they star, you know, what you would consider, I guess, controversial artists. But you have to, in our view, be able to separate those two things, the art from the artist. And Kevin Spacey is one of those because frankly, if you I'd encourage folks to listen to that interview because it's it's pretty insightful. I don't know the facts of all the different things, but again, we're just talking about the movie.

SPEAKER_00 15:14

Right. But I think the problem with him versus somebody else, like say Michael Jackson, he never came out and said, Yeah, I'm guilty. Where Kevin Spacey in court came out and admitted to the things he did and said, I used bad judgment. And I think that's what makes this a little different, is he's not defending himself. He's saying, No, I did it.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

Well, he is, he is in some cases, right? Because they're there again, listen to the interview and you'll you'll hear him speak to it because they've they've won some of those cases and some of them never made it to court. You know, whatever the case is, but again, it's totally irrelevant. Well, it's derailed his career.

SPEAKER_00 15:59

Totally derailed.

SPEAKER_02 16:01

Exactly, but it's totally irrelevant to the conversation in the sense that, you know, it it takes nothing away from the quality of this film. The per his performance among all the others in the film are I mean, you're talking the all every single performance is a master class. I can't think of a more heavyweight casting than this.

SPEAKER_00 16:27

When I saw it, Spacey was the only actor I didn't know. Yeah, was did Usual Suspects even come out yet? I don't think so. No.

SPEAKER_03 16:36

I don't think so, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

He was basically an unknown. And it's funny because when I I went to the theater in Orlando to see this, and again, it was a Siskel Ebert recommendation, you must go see this film. And I went and a roommate of mine at the time, we're watching it, and this is when they had Reel to Reels, and the reel burned up. So right in the middle of a cadence, one of Mammoth's cadres, the the movie literally went on fire, and we sat there for like 10 minutes while I restored it to get to a point where we could pick the story up again.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

Yeah, I don't know that we gave it a good setup. I mean, unscrupulous salesmen try to hawk dubious real estate to suckers. That's a real short IMDV version.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Jack Lemon he does a commentary track. There's there's two versions. There's a version, a shout version, which is this version here.

SPEAKER_02 17:39

For those listening, again, Mike is holding up something physical.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

I I'm holding up the Shout Factory DV Blu-ray.

SPEAKER_03 17:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 17:49

And it's the best way to get it. It's fifteen bucks. And it comes with two commentaries, it comes with a James Foley one-hour interview. And in it, Jack Lemon talks about how ruthless and devious these guys are, yet James Foley has a totally different take on it. He says, you know, these salesmen are really trying to help people. They're trying to sell them a dream. And if you think about it, Pacino, which that was known before Baldwin's part was added, it opened on Pacino and Link. And Pacino doing this whole spiel about what's this?

SPEAKER_02 18:32

Yeah, so Jonathan Price character names James Link, and he's one of these individuals that, in this case, Al Pacino's character, Ricky Roma, is trying to dupe into investing in some real estate. And and and Roma, because Ricky Roma is at the top of the heap, right? He's he's the main guy there. He's, you know, and so he and you can see it in the performance in the restaurant, this Chinese restaurant across the street from the real estate company, because he wines and dines this guy all day, all night long. Like he just really, it's all about building the relationship and the trust. And even though, you know, his motivations are quite devious, at the end of the day, he's looking to get the guy to sign on the dotted line and invest in land. And so it's interesting to hear that Foley's take on that is, you know, that these guys are, well, yeah, maybe they're helping them realize a dream, but a dream that can never be realized. And they know that. They know that. You see it in all their conversations behind the scenes in the office.

SPEAKER_00 19:47

Right. But how many people back when it was swampland bought Florida land and now, you know, look what's going on around your neighborhood. Orlando was literally a swamp. Yeah, but that was that was Walt Disney. Made that a reality, right? Right. But not the all the way. All the surrounding areas became very expensive to live in.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

Yeah, but not but not because of, you know, again, you know, Joe Blow, every man that invested in acreage. You know, it's just that I don't think that's what it was. But but I, you know, they it's a lot of deception, there's a lot of greed involved, and you know, there's a lot of this theme of toxic masculinity. Is that something you ever thought about when it came to this film? Certainly not in the 90s, you weren't thinking about that. But have you thought about that in response to the case?

SPEAKER_00 20:41

I do now with the language. Because, like, say there was a woman in that office. There's no way that language would be the way it is.

SPEAKER_02 20:51

Well, I would curb it. Well, but I don't think that's reality. I think that that happens in certain industries. I think you know men take liberty to women too.

SPEAKER_00 21:01

That's an argument that Foley makes in the interview, is he said, because they interviewed tons of salesmen. And the the the most impressive salesman they interviewed was a woman made 50 cents per brush, hairbrush. She was more impressive than the guy that made three sales a year in real estate plus a million dollars or whatever he made. Yet it was her skill to sell a brush and make 50 cents that made her a good living.

SPEAKER_02 21:39

Yeah, I think the the you know, staying on the issue the the topic of toxic masculinity for a minute, because this has been this has been a talking point over in the last couple of years, you know, last three, four years or so. I can remember when we did a review on the film The Power of the Dog, right? That was that was very much about that topic, as I recall. Right. And it's a great film. Go check out that review. But it's also in the way that they the film sets up the fact that, you know, if you don't win, if you're not cutthroat, if you're not, then you're lesser than, right? And you mentioned some of the language that's used, like fairy and this and that. And so I, you know, I see it more now than I probably did when this first came out back in 92. Things have certainly changed. Well, when I when I I don't see them as sympathetic characters, though.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

No, but if you listen to Jane Jane James Foley, it's really interesting. It's a very different take that I didn't have.

SPEAKER_02 22:43

Well, Jack Lemon's character is maybe the one exception to that, right? Because he's his character, Shelley Levine, he's they set up very early, like right from the opening sequence, actually, is he's on a payphone, which they had back then. Right. And he's, you can tell he's on the phone with a hospital trying to get an update on his daughter, who is apparently sick. And you you come to learn pretty quickly that that's why he's there grinding and doing what he's doing, because he needs the money to pay the hospital bills and to pay for a nurse to be there 24-7 and all of these sorts of things. So I think that generates a lot more sympathy for his character than I find for any of the others. Certainly.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

And because his motivation is genuine and understandable. Back in the day, he was as cutthroat as anyone. Sure he was. You know, I mean Ricky Roma learned from him.

SPEAKER_02 23:40

Absolutely. Yeah. And he says as much. And he he hasn't he has his own attack of Williamson in the film. And the film, as you you you've already said, you if you haven't seen Glen Gary Glenn Ross, it's an absolute must for so many reasons. I mean, as I felt with that close range, this film, it's so beautiful. Like aesthetically, the film is just gorgeous to look at. You've got the same cinematographer, Mike, that he used, Juan Ruiz Ansia, who the color palette he chooses here. The movement of the camera, Mike, is unbelievable with some of these shots. The blocking, you know, the blocking is really, it seems to me he approached it. Maybe he talks about in the commentary. It's approached very much like you're directing a play, which makes a lot of sense, right? But and and just the, you know, the I can think of a shot of this character Spannel I mentioned, who's just a guy that Jack Lemon's character goes to try to sell, right? He talks to his wife on the phone. He goes to the guy's house. This guy wants nothing to do with it, he doesn't want to invest in anything. His wife took the phone call without his knowledge. My wife filled out a card a year ago and we have been flagged. Right. But but there's a in that sequence, there's a there's a point where the spannel, the character spannel gets up, and you see the shot is from kind of over the shoulder, and he's sort of looming over Jack Lemon, who is sitting on the couch in this guy's house. So you've got this, you know, the the the switch in authority. Because at first Lemon comes in, he's giving him the slick snakes, you know, uh snake oil salesman kind of thing, and but then the tables turn and the guy's like, uh, I'm not interested in what you're selling.

SPEAKER_00 25:30

But at the end of it, when he says goodbye, he does not make eye contact with Jack Lemon. He can't even look him in the eye.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

No, but he does close the door in his face.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

He does, very similar to The Godfather, right? I thought of that sequence when Diane Keaton's getting the door closed on her. And there's a message being sent there. There's a message, but you feel sympathy for Jack Lemon in that moment, at least I did.

SPEAKER_02 25:58

You do, and and this is it's it's it's really to do with Lemon's brilliance, right? Because there's not a lot of dialogue going on at that point. It's really just the acting in Mike. This is a film where like the reactions are probably more important than anything else that's going on, right? So if it's uh if it's the two characters in the scene, you you find yourself more in raptured by who's ever on the receiving end of whatever the dialogue is, right? And it's but I just they're all they're firing on all cylinders, all these guys, Lemon, Harris, Baldwin, again, he's on the screen for seven, eight minutes, and he just owns the screen.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

And interesting, they spent three weeks rehearsing.

SPEAKER_02 26:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Because the dialogue can't stop. Right. It's the pace is non-stop.

SPEAKER_03 26:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

So by the time they were ready to film it, they had it locked.

SPEAKER_03 26:59

Locked, yes.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

And like I said, every little um er uh was part of the rhythm.

SPEAKER_02 27:06

The rhythm, yeah. And there's a lot of that. The repeating of a line like George's, like Alan Arkin's character. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

And when Alec Baldwin comes on the set for the first time, they all shut him out. Like literally. They leave him alone in his trailer and they treat him poorly, but he's such a jerk.

SPEAKER_02 27:31

Yeah, it's very typical. And you know, I love the introduction of Baldwin's characters. Baldwin is sent in by the head of the firm, Mitch and Murray. Mitch and Murray. Yeah, Mitch and Murray, they send him there to basically say, you know, to whip these guys into shape. And first prize is a Cadillac El Dorado. Second prize, Mike, set of steak knives. Right. Third prize, you're fired. Right. Hit the bricks. But what I love is you see Jack Lemon is walking across the street. There's this exterior shot of Lemon walking into Premier Properties, which is the real estate company where they work. And as he's walking across the street and it's raining, which is very significant in the film, the use of rain.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

That was the biggest expense in the film.

SPEAKER_02 28:21

The rain towers. Not the salary, the rain. Yeah, and it's it's amazing. That and and the subway, which we'll talk about in a minute. But as Lemon's walking across the street, he catches in the corner of his eye, he sees a BMW parked outside the real estate office, this bright red BMW, and you hear, Mike, if you listen closely, you can hear the chirping of the alarm going off. And Lemon just looks at it, and it's just a great setup to what's to come when Baldwin actually does the scene that he does, which is brilliant. It's brilliant.

SPEAKER_00 29:01

And the funny thing is that location, that premier properties, just happened to be there.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

And it's Premier, yeah, Premier Properties.

SPEAKER_02 29:10

And it was it was two doors down from what, Mike? At Dunkin' Donuts. Right. Right. But but the Yeah, I mentioned the movement of the camera, the blocking, the rain we talked about. You know, it's there's these climatic moments between characters where there's tensions building and building and building. And Foley and I guess, you know, the sound designer and everything, they come together and collaborate where as the scene is coming to a climax, the weather is also coming to a climax, right? There's like a thunderclap that goes off right at the height of a scene, you know, the Pacino's yelling or something. And the the the subway might talk a little bit about that. There's a couple of different sequences where the some the the the sound of the subway overhead rumbling by.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

It's every one of them mentioned the opening credits, which is the names flashing to the subway, to the sound of the subway. And that there's a jazz score in the background that's very specific. This there's a sax, an alto sax that's representing sex. All these things that sax representing sex?

SPEAKER_02 30:32

Sex. Interesting. Yeah, James Newton Howard did the score for the film. And it's just, again, it's beautiful. And this we we often point that out. In this case, it's very true. It's its own character throughout the film.

SPEAKER_00 30:45

Yeah. And the fact that they all talk about the opening credits. Like Jack Lemon said, you know, I've done 51 films. This is the best opening.

SPEAKER_02 30:56

And he also said it was the best cast he ever worked with. Yeah. You know, the score, it's funny too. It just I just remember it. I used to have the soundtrack on CD to this film. That's how good it is. Wow. It's one that I could just listen to as a, you know, an album, like any other album. You know.

SPEAKER_00 31:15

It it's ironic because it's very soothing if what's happening is very the complete opposite. You know, the pressure that's putting on these people. Right. F first it's being put on the salesman, and then they have to turn around and put it on the customer.

SPEAKER_02 31:33

Yeah, that's true. That's true. Mike, I want you to talk about always be cobbling. Can you talk about always be cobbling?

SPEAKER_00 31:42

James Foley and the extras says, you know, it was it's you know, Gil Gunderson, does that name ring a bell to you? Gil from Fargo? No, it's from uh The Simpsons.

SPEAKER_02 31:54

Oh, I'm sorry, yes. Yeah, of course. Right, right, right. It's modeled after Shelly Dean. That's right.

SPEAKER_00 32:01

But what did you ask me before that?

SPEAKER_02 32:04

Talking about the uh the SNL parody.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 32:08

If you've seen Saturday Night Live, Alec Baldwin parodies be so set up the scene from Glengarry, Glenn Ross, but you know, talk a little bit about Baldwin C.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Yeah, he's there, sent there by Mitch and Murray, the heads, to motivate these guys and to tell them, hey, it is blank or walk. You sell or walk. Hit the bricks. Hit the bricks. And you know, he goes on this rant and it's just profane and brutal. And what's your name? F you, that's my name. You know, that's the kind of guy this is.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

And then Shelly at one point is like, the leads are weak. The leads are weak? You're weak.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

Right. It just lays into all of them. Your name's Levine. You call yourself a salesman, you son of a bitch. Right.

SPEAKER_02 33:00

And then Shelly goes to get a pot of a cup of coffee. Right. Very famous sequence. And then that's where Baldwin really starts the monologue is put that coffee down. Coffee is for closers.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

And the SNL sketch, it's him going to Santa's workshop, motivating the elves. Put that cocoa down.

SPEAKER_02 33:29

It's Seth Myers is in it, Rachel Dratch. It's funny too, because remember his character's name in the parody on SNL? I don't. Winter's Breath.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

And he screwed it up, which was so funny because it he's supposed to say always be cobbling.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

Yeah, because in Glen Gary Glenn Ross, while he's giving the speech, he has this chalkboard and there's these two acronyms. One's A, B, C. Always be closed. Always be closing. Closing. Yeah. Right. And that's so in the SNL parody, it's always be cobbling, but what you're pointing out is he's he at first is always be closing because it's just and they laugh. They laughed. There's also a scene. I love this one, Mike, in both the film and the parody where Baldwin's character looks at Ed Harris. He says, You see this watch? You see this watch? This watch costs more than your car. And in the SNL spoof, he says, You see this gumdrop? This gumdrop costs more than the mushroom you call a house. It's so funny.

SPEAKER_00 34:40

Yeah, it's so good. Watch the film. Yeah. Make sure to go to YouTube and find that sketch because it will put you in tears.

SPEAKER_02 34:49

It really is good. Now, I couldn't tell you how many times I've seen this film, but what seeing it again more recently, what is there anything new or different that stood out to you in a rewatch? Because it's a film that we could sit here and recite. We could just recite every single line.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

We do almost get every line of dialogue. It's crazy. But what stuck out that that had to be pointed out to me, like Shelly is telling Ricky about this $82,000 sale he just made. It's a blah blah nyborg. Yeah, blah blah nyborg, right? And as he's telling him, instead of what normally would happen in a film, they would tighten the shot to lock in on these guys. James Foley does the opposite and opens the room up. And there's a lot of little things like that that I never noticed.

SPEAKER_02 35:49

And that's an interesting scene that you would talk about because Roma catches Shelly in a lie about about the Nyborg deal. It's this couple, Bruce and Harriet Nyborg. And, you know, Shelly says this is towards the latter part of the film, and Shelly is telling because he's on a high and it's a war story. Yeah, and what does Ricky do? He indulges him, right? This guy's a legend in the business and he pays him the respect. And so Shelly is basically talking about how he closed the deal last night, and then a short time later, it comes out that he says, Yeah, I went over, I closed it this morning. And you see, again, a reaction shot on Pacino tells you all you need to know, where he's like, hmm, that's okay, that's odd, because that's not what he said a few minutes ago.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

Now, in the play, have you ever read the play? I haven't read the play, no. You you should grab it. In the play, Ricky Roma kind of jumps on Levine at the end, takes him down. And it was Joe Montaigne that said, you know what? We should switch that. He's really, you know, he's really on Shelly's side and instead of the opposite, where like as soon as what happens is there's a robbery in the office, and it turns out Shelly's involved. And Ricky figures it out by him telling that story you just mentioned. Well, once he finds out he ripped off the office, he wants part of every sale because he's gonna go and reclose all of Shelly's deals. So it's very different. It's a very different tone at the end.

SPEAKER_02 37:36

Yeah, I it would be hard to pick out any one performance here because they are they're all spectacular. Every single performance is spectacular, but Jack Lemon is just on another level. And it was interesting because I'm sure you s you heard this, maybe Foley talks about in the commentary, but how interestingly, and I think it influenced the casting to a degree, if you think of where who the character is that the actor plays, and where the actor is in their career, and where their character is in their career, there's a lot of parallel there. And I never really thought about that before. You know, like Lemon was at the height of his, you know, he's a legend and blah, blah. Right. Kind of similar to Shelly Levine. And so and Pacino, top of his game, and he's the one that's on the top of the board, the sales board, and all of that. I never really thought about that before, but let me let me let me pivot for a second, Mike, because we always talk about this. And just curious if you think this is accurate or we talk about the ratings a lot, right? So IMDB has a metascore of 84. I think that's low. It's low. Rotten Tomatoes, this is one it's more and less 90%, this should be 100%, quite frankly. But it's 95% from the critics there, and 88% from the audience. And again, I think some of it might be to do with folks that haven't seen the film, but but really that as you mentioned at the top, the abrasive language can be really off-putting for people. It's hard to get past that.

SPEAKER_00 39:15

If I put this movie in for our mother, she wouldn't get you five minutes. Well, which you have done. You did that years ago. Did I with this film?

SPEAKER_02 39:24

Yes, and she couldn't get past it.

SPEAKER_00 39:26

Yeah, and that was a complete unawareness on my part. And it's funny because when I would do that, Alec Baldwin, I wouldn't do the whole thing. It's too long. I would do a minute of it. I would apologize to everyone in the room and say, I I really apologize for my language. I normally don't swear at all. And I'm gonna swear a lot.

SPEAKER_02 39:52

Well, it got really hairy when you called mom the C-word. That's when I was like, hey, wait, that's a bridge too far.

SPEAKER_00 39:59

Not even that far. But thank God she didn't get to that part in in the in the film or the play.

SPEAKER_02 40:07

Had you ever thought about that? I really I hadn't thought about this, and maybe it's maybe it speaks to the toss toxic masculinity theme, but that this is basically an all-male cast. Now, there's two women that you see in the film for about two seconds. A hat check girl. They have no lines or anything. Right. So it's one girl that says rain. Oh, something like that. It's basically an all-male cast. Yeah. And so I was thinking about that as as I was preparing for the conversation that it's interesting, you know, that what does that say? Was that intentional? You know, is that just where we were in 1992? Well, is it a film that could be that could have more female leads or an all-female cast? And actually, that has happened on Broadway. Really? Yeah, there have been versions, I don't know if it's off Broadway or whatever, but in Dear of Arma, Mike, who's an actress that we know somewhat recently from the Kenobi series, she played one of the officers in that. You'd recognize her if you saw her face. But I so all of a sudden I started to see on my YouTube feed popping up different iterations of this with all female leads. And I've seen some of the clips from their performances of it, and it's very interesting, but it's weird, it's odd to watch because they're using the language. Right. Same verbatim memet, because you that would be blasphemy if you messed at all with the dialogue, right? The written word. But so I'm just curious what your thoughts were of that. Is it something you've ever thought about?

SPEAKER_00 41:51

Or well, you know, I have, and I'll tell you a movie I always compare this to. Another movie we should do, which is Midnight Run. Do you realize how many F bombs? Yeah. I'll tell you what I found out. I'm at the house in California, and my ex-wife's parents were over, and I said, There's a really funny movie called Midnight Run. And I put it in, and my God, my ears went on fire. Every F-bomb, I'm thinking, what are they gonna think of me? I'm Mosley.

SPEAKER_02 42:33

Well, it's funny you should say that because I my girlfriend's parents, I just had them watch it, I don't know, a month or so ago. They thought it was great.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

Midnight Run? Midnight Run. Yeah, they did look, they liked it. Yeah. But I was the one that every time I was like, You were just cringing.

SPEAKER_02 42:51

God, I was cringing.

SPEAKER_00 42:53

Yeah, yeah, well, I get it. And you know what? I think Jack Lemon makes a good comparison to Jack Lemon. Did seven films with Billy Wilder. And after this, Glen Gary Glenn Ross, the next year he did a film with Mammoth again called Something A Salesman. A day in the life of a salesman, I think, is the title. But here's some of his work that he wrote that you might even have forgotten. Spanish Prisoner. Oh, yeah, of course. The Heist. You talk about Memet. Memet. This is David Memet's work. State in Maine, of course. State in Maine.

SPEAKER_02 43:34

With Alec.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

House of Game. With Joe Montaigne. Oleana with his Rebecca Pigeon. Rebecca Pigeon. American Buffalo.

SPEAKER_03 43:45

The Untouchables. With Kevin Costner?

SPEAKER_00 43:51

Kevin Costner, yeah, I see. I never think of that. And the heist, it was who was the star of the heist? He's in the untouchables.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

Well, I just said Kevin Costner.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

No, I'm I'm thinking Of the older actor in the heist, Gene Hackman. Gene Hackman. Gene Hackman. So Memet, what are you saying he wrote the screenplay for the untectual? He wrote all of these screenplays. Wow, that I didn't know. I'm shocked. There's a couple more. There's one coming up, Dan, that's gonna be re it's in production right now. Speed the plow. Have you read that?

SPEAKER_03 44:28

Okay, no. No.

SPEAKER_00 44:29

That's coming out. Okay. Hannibal was him. That's the one that really kind of sticks out like Hannibal. Wag the Dog. Okay, yeah. A political film, right?

SPEAKER_02 44:41

Well, that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 44:43

Really based on Bill Clinton.

SPEAKER_02 44:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

But you know, The Edge, which is another movie with Alec Baldwin. And Sir Anthony Hopkins, my Sir Anthony.

SPEAKER_02 44:53

That's a very underrated film that I love. I'm glad you I can't believe I never hear anybody mention The Edge. And it's it's a really two great performances in that film. It's really just the two of them. I did not, I did not know that, as Carson used to say.

SPEAKER_00 45:07

And the cast we watched in the movie, 29 Oscar nominations. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 45:15

Yeah, and Foley talks about how Jack Lemon, maybe somewhere deep inside, was hoping and absolutely should have been nominated and won an Academy Award for this film. Of course, Al Pacino was nominated. Right. But uh so that was a bit of a bug.

SPEAKER_00 45:33

The studio did nothing to promote it. Now they have full-scale productions. Me and you get stuff from film companies. Hey, consider this. We're not even voters.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

Right, right. Do you ever think long about the title, Glengarry Glen Ross? It just it's so ingrained in our you know.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

I think because uh at the beginning I didn't. You don't think about it. It's Glengarry Highlands. Down here in Florida, and Glen Ross Farms. That's right.

SPEAKER_03 46:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:07

And I never really thought of that. No, you know, those news just come off the tongue like you know.

SPEAKER_02 46:16

What's your favorite uh line in the whole film? What's the first thing that comes to your mind? Put that coffee down. Yeah. I love I love Pacino. You never open your mouth till you know what the shot is.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 46:32

Such a great line. And there's so many good lines, but it it's a film that, you know, name your criteria. It absolutely checks the box. And so, you know, this was one where I said we just it was just about coming on and having a dialogue about it because we love the film so much.

SPEAKER_00 46:49

We did the net a Netflix movie that we just hated. We had to clean the palate a little bit. Right. And we wanted to do something positive. And again, Siskel and Ebert gave me this gift of telling me, go see this film. And that's my message. Go see this film.

SPEAKER_02 47:10

And another another example of efficiency of well, and again, you're talking David Memmett, so it's you know, that's a high bar, but one hour 40 minutes, and you've got an absolute masterpiece of a film. It's one of the best films of all time, hands down. Yeah. Shockingly, it's in neither of our top five films, I believe. I don't believe it is, which is sad.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

I know I've thought of this one in my top ten. Mm-hmm. And it really should be probably top five.

SPEAKER_03 47:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:45

And and you don't, again, i if you just have any interest in film and acting and storytelling and writing and directing, whatever it is, even even music scores, you have got to see this film. It's it's an absolute classic. And there was what? Like there was a period of time where was it wasn't the story that you know different sales teams would show this in their meetings or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 48:13

Absolutely. They took James Foley talks how this is used as a training tape in many offices.

SPEAKER_02 48:21

But these guys were there's a lot of manipulation going on. Again, I aside from Jack Lemon, I don't have a lot of sympathy for the other characters. Now, Sir Jonathan Price, too, I mean, probably has other than Baldwin and maybe Bruce Altman and and Jude uh Chicolella, who plays a detective in the film, has the least amount of screen time, but wow, what a performance this guy delivers. Without speaking. And and the his the very last scene you see him in. You know, I would I would have loved to have been any one of these actors acting off of the other. I mean, and they all talk about the power of the ensemble in this film and how much they enjoyed it and how powerful it was. But if you want to see, you know, acting at its in its highest form, I I I'm hard pressed to think of many other examples that have this many in one film.

SPEAKER_00 49:23

Right. You can focus on any one of them. Like Alan Arkin. Yes. I always think that's a throwaway part. And then I then I did it. And I was like, oh my God. A, there's a lot of dialogue. And B, it's it's a really, I think it's one of the more difficult performances because it's not over the top.

SPEAKER_02 49:46

Yeah, and it's the most recent Broadway performance was what would you have in there? Uh Bill Burr and Kieran Culkin. That's right. Pretty star-studd cast there for the Broadway.

SPEAKER_00 49:58

It didn't even last a year. So the revival, you know, it went 15 years, and Joe Montagna started it, and he closed the 15 years. But there was uh a revival, I think, in 2015.

SPEAKER_02 50:15

Yeah, I think that's when Pacino came back into it.

SPEAKER_00 50:18

That's when he came in and did it.

SPEAKER_02 50:19

Yeah. Yeah. And with Oh God, the guy who's in Boardwalk Empire. That that uh Bobby Conavale was in it with it.

SPEAKER_00 50:28

That's a good call.

SPEAKER_02 50:29

Yeah, yeah. Great idea.

SPEAKER_00 50:30

And the 2025 cast, I uh we know every one of them. I do every one of them down. Uh Bob Odenkirk is in there.

SPEAKER_02 50:38

That's right. And and also his co-star from Better Call Saul, right? His brother. Wasn't um Michael McCann? Wasn't Michael McCann in as well? I think he's in it too.

SPEAKER_00 50:49

He may have been. I remember hearing his name. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:52

Well, I just I can't say enough about the film. It's one of my all-time favorites. Like I said, I used to own the score on CD. It was that good too, musically, but the it just again, those who've seen the film know it.

SPEAKER_00 51:04

Do yourself a favor and find this wherever you have to on Prime or whoever's got it.

SPEAKER_02 51:12

I think Netflix has it. I think Netflix has it. Now we of course own it. You know, we started off the the episode with a story about, you know, a visit to a car salesman, and I thought it was fitting we could we could wind it down with a story of us getting duped and manipulated by a couple of salesmen out at Comic-Con in San Diego. Do you care to tell that story? We're on the streets of San Diego. I mean, it's so shameful, and we were so embarrassed and and mortified, and we talked about it. We ruminated about it for like 24 hours.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

Yeah. These two guys got us as we were going back to the convention center. It was at night. It was dark out. Yeah. And the these two guys, rappers, grabbed us.

SPEAKER_02 51:59

Yeah, whatever. I don't know. Well, they gave us a rap and album. They gave us a CD.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

And he they were putting a hard sell on us. They got me for a buck. And I gave it proud of myself. I gave more than a buck, let's just say that.

SPEAKER_02 52:14

But they were relentless, but they were very suave and very they were skilled. They were skilled at it. They were skilled at it. That's what I mean. They weren't going to take no. I don't have that thing. I don't have, I have too much dignity that I just can't, but they walked away with some of our money. So they're laughing, they're having the last laugh.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

Again, think of yourself. Whatever job you do, how much of it is sales?

SPEAKER_02 52:38

You're selling stuff. Yeah, I think just in life, just right, we we have multiple selves. And yeah, I think you're right. It's very performative and it's sales to a large degree.

SPEAKER_00 52:49

Yeah, I think that was all selling at least ourselves. Yeah. And if nothing else.

SPEAKER_02 52:55

Yeah. And maybe our soul, too, at this episode of the podcast. We certainly did out in San Diego. But well, Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross, again, it's an absolute must see. Trust us on this one. If you don't like it, then we can't be friends. It's that easy. If you subscribe to the podcast and you see the film and you don't like it, please still subscribe. But I'm going to question your judgment a little bit. And I do want to can Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 53:23

The only caveat is if language is an issue.

SPEAKER_02 53:27

Sure. Well, you've already put the warning out there. But we would beg you to sort of look past that as as best you can because it really uh it's wear off. Well, and that's reality. That's reality in some of these environments, right? Right. So I mean, hell, I can think of a company I worked for where I was, you know, driving a truck, and it was certainly a daily thing in the warehouse, and I'm sure you can say the same thing.

SPEAKER_00 53:55

Yeah. I worked for UPS, loading truck. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 53:59

Right. It wasn't yes, sir, no, sir, yes, ma'am, no, ma'am. Like. But anyways, as we uh often like to take a minute just to thank those that are supporting the podcast. If you're listening and downloading the episodes, deeply appreciate that. If you subscribe to the YouTube channel, greatly appreciate that as well. We continue to see Mike. We're almost there. We're getting to another milestone on the uh YouTube channel. So we appreciate. In fact, I'd like to try to do this. Let me see, Mike, if I can do it real quick before we wrap up, because I do like to every now and then take a minute and thank a few folks who have recently subscribed, Mike.

SPEAKER_03 54:36

Let's see, we've got a few new folks. Uh let's see. Here we go. Mike, we've got oh, I want to give a shout out to if you'll indulge me, Mike.

SPEAKER_02 54:47

I know that I used to say, blah, blah, blah. And then I here I am doing it. But a longtime friend of mine, Mark. Mark Martin, he and his wife, Kathy, who, you know, I just was chatting with Mark. We had a nice long conversation by text, and we were catching up a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 55:02

I gotta make a trip to Virginia to to visit him.

SPEAKER_03 55:05

But do I know him?

SPEAKER_02 55:07

I don't know. Jeez. I think you may have met Mark once. I honestly can't remember. Those those days are a little hazy. Those are the early 90s. Speaking of which, it's it's it's fitting here because I think I met Mark about the time that this film came out, Glengarry, Glenn Ross. And um, Mark and Kathy have been very good to me over the years, and uh they are now subscribers to the OBR uh YouTube channel, along with Mike Cheryl, Everett, Janice Goldberg, uh, MB, some of these are you know usernames, Mike's Reviews, Art and More. That's a long one to say. Nicholas Miller, and a lot of others, Easton Dowdy. So, anyways, we thank you guys for supporting the podcast. Yeah, we appreciate it. And make sure that you're engaging with us out there, you know, whether it's on Instagram where we're very active at OHB as a brother podcast. You can find us out on Instagram or on the YouTube channel. We love to interact with folks there. So if you've got any thoughts about this episode or any others that we've done that you've seen or heard, and whether you agree or disagree with us, share your opinions and your thoughts there on the YouTube channel or on Instagram. We uh we always love to engage with folks there. And we're on all major podcast platforms. So if you'd like to consume your podcasts in the audio form, you can find us anywhere that you find your podcast. Mike, anything else to say about Glen Gary, Glenn Ross? I know you did a deep dive into the extras with the commentary and any other nuggets that stand out there?

SPEAKER_00 56:40

No, I would just say please take our advice on this one and watch it. For all the ones that we tell you to we want to save your life, steer clear from this one, stick in, enjoy this.

SPEAKER_02 56:55

And for any anybody that that says we don't do our our our homework, our research, I've got pages from.

SPEAKER_00 57:01

Oh Lord, this one I had pages.

SPEAKER_02 57:03

And this is a film we we do could have not taken any notes.

SPEAKER_00 57:07

Right. We could have we could have just cold done this.

SPEAKER_02 57:10

Right, but it was that uh significant and important a film that I think we felt we wanted to make sure that we covered a lot of the different points. So there you go, folks. The OBROT Podcast, Glenn Gary, Glenn Ross review mic. This was one I said, I want to get this in the O Brother archive. So here it is. That's gonna do it for another episode of the O Brother Podcast. I'm in your host, Dan Smith. Longside me as always, my brother from the same mother, Mike Smith, and we will see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 57:34

Bye, everyone.