Spotlight On: Burt Lancaster | Episode 19

This week Adam and Charlotte discuss one of their favorite actors, Burt Lancaster. Adam goes from jealous to joyous and even breaks out into a few songs while Charlotte goes giddy talking about her screen crush.  

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Transcript

Oh no, not again.

Hi, I'm Adam. And I'm Charlotte and welcome, welcome to Perfect Damage, the Weekly podcast hosted by a movie obsessed husband and wife team who work in the film industry. We'll share stories of film production and restoration. We'll review and recommend. We'll examine the minutiae of subgenres and even micro genres, and most importantly, we will tackle the art of the double feature.

Just remember, all our opinions are our own and do not represent. Of our employers. Thank you for joining us. Welcome.

Welcome back. Welcome to our very special Valentine's Day episode. So romantic. I can think of few things more romantic than this episode. Nothing's more romantic than listening to a podcast. Yes. You turn down the lights, light a few candles. Turn up the volume. Oh yeah. I feel like I'm just gonna talk like this.

I know I'm trying to go lower and I don't think I can. I think I've hit the bottom. Welcome to the Valentine's Day episode, people. We've both hit the bottom. Yeah. This is rock bottom. This is rock bottom. And we've just started, we can only go up from here. That's right, folks. That's what we do. We set the bar really low, and then we just exceed your expectations.

Then we get back up to tolerable, if that, all right. So yeah. I'm gonna tell a story on this one. You're gonna tell a story. Well, I'm gonna tell a story about Charlotte's True Love and it's not me. It's not. Unfortunately, I am the second man in Charlotte's life. I take a backseat to a guy named Burt Lancaster.

Burt Lancaster, her true love. To be fair, I met you first. You did. I don't know how, and you never actually met Bert Lancaster. I guess that's not really fair. Yeah. Yeah. I met you, but then I wet someone. Way cooler. Yeah. Not in person though, ever. No. Just the magic of the silver screen. But it kicked off an obsession.

Let's talk about how that obsession started. How did your true love of Burt Lancaster start? I can tell you exactly when it started. It was 2010. I think it was in the springtime because of all of the birds singing. Mm-hmm. Yes, the flowers blooming. I was home sick one day and I turn on tcm and this little five minute piece comes on.

It's called John Frankenheimer on Burt Lancaster. John Frankenheimer is an amazing director if you're not familiar with him, and he directed five of Burt Lancaster's films and he's just telling stories about working with him and other. Anecdotes and death. Bert Lancaster was a movie star in the truest sense of the word.

He had what? The great director, Billy Wilder called Cinema Magic. I should know because I directed Bert Lancaster in five films, Pater Classic Movies on John Frankenheimer. They had this little thing, and after that they played two Burt Lancaster films. Oh, a double. They did a double feature. And it wasn't that I was unfamiliar with Burt Lancaster.

I knew who he was. I knew he was that guy in the movie where they're on the beach. He was a tough guy and a bunch of film noirs. Never really. So you've seen him. It's seen him, but it wasn't love at first sight. It wasn't love at first sight until I saw that thing, Hey, maybe my bar was set really low cuz I was home sick.

So I kept the channel on and the first one to come on was Birdman of Alcatraz. And. I was just taken in by that movie. It's a wonderful helm, but it's not really like a Wal won. Well, it's not like one of those where you're like, Ooh, he's so good looking in this movie. No, it's not like a lot of his films where he is like shirtless and running around.

So I watched Birdman of Alcatraz, I was blown away. And after Birdman, they showed Elmer Gantry, which if you've been listening to this podcast, you might remember, that is one of my top four films on letterbox. Yeah, to bring back to episode one of the first season, or the episode we just played a few episodes ago.

Yeah, we did mention it again. We talk about it at length in the first one and why you love that movie so much. Yeah, we do. So they played that one and that's when she really fell in love. Yes. He is incredible. His hair is the most flu that I think it ever is. He's got the fluffies hair. Yeah, we have this The flu meter.

The flu meter. I think you've discussed that or mentioned. I don't know that we've mentioned it on here, but just in case you haven't heard it. The movie is gauged by the size of the hair, how big and fluffy his hair is. Yeah, we always comment on that. Generally, the really good movies, he has big and fluffy.

And, but that's not the case. Not necessarily true per birdman valtra or sweet smell of sweet or sweet smell of disgust. So that's not always true. But we enjoy when it's extra flu. Yeah. So I just became obsessed with Burt Lancaster after that. I know you got home and I called guys all Jealous, who's this Burt Lancaster guy, and within two months I watched 17 Burt Lancaster films.

How do I know? Because in addition to becoming obsessed with them, I started a blog cited. I was gonna try to watch every Burt Lancaster film ever made by the end of the year. Yeah, that didn't happen. Spoiler alert. It's not really a spoiler alert, cuz I don't think it would even be possible. No. It was hard to find the films back then.

Remember 2010? Yes. A short 13 years ago. Yeah. It was very difficult to track. A lot of his films were either Yeah, totally. Dude. Were either out of print or only existed on vhs. There were not the nice, beautiful versions that have been coming out thanks to Keno Loberg. Thank you. Keno. Keno. Loberg has really been on top of Burt Lancaster films they have and I really appreciate.

We have replaced most of our Burt Lancaster Library with nice brand new Luray. It's always nice to get rid of that VHS tape. That's taken up way too much space because we have a pretty big library of films around here, and we don't do too many collections because we think that gets messy. But we do have a Burt Lancaster section.

Section. Yeah. That has category. Yeah, that has How many movies? It has? 70. 70. We have 70. Unique Burt Lancaster films. That's the biggest collection of any one actor that we have. Absolutely. So let's talk about this blog you started. The blog was called Watch Every Film by dot, dot dot. Here's a Thought after a watch all the Burt Lancaster films, maybe I'll pick another actor director to go through.

But I never made it through all the Burt Lancaster once because it. It's hard to find them. Yeah, it was really difficult. I remember going to a Miba records and we would search through the VHS section, which at the time was a ghost town. It was a ghost town back then. Nobody was there. Yeah. There was actual tumbleweed in the aisles to move the tumbleweed outta the way.

That's right. Oh, I can't see that one. Pushing tumbleweed down. Yeah. We found several really hard to find ones that haven't even made the jump yet. In addition to Ameba record. We would also go to this video store called Eddie Brand that was in North Hollywood and this was huge video store where you could rent things that had been both officially and unofficially released and they had all kinds of stuff.

It was great. Yeah. Unfortunately it nope, did not make it through the pandemic. Did. They kept really weird hours there anyway. It was hard to get in sometimes. Yeah. But yeah, that was a great resource. There was a website called I offer that, uh, people would trade boot legs back and forth on Oh yeah, that's right.

That was, that no longer exists either. So if you want to hear more about Bert Lancaster, stay tuned. Stay tuned.

All right, so back to Bert Lancaster, my favorite topic. So Charlotte, why don't you give us a brief bio of Burt Lancaster for those that don't know about him. Burt Lancaster born Burton, Steven Lancaster. In 1913, he was born in New York City and he didn't get into acting until he was in his thirties.

Really? What'd he do before acting? Well in Hollywood acting, I should say. But before that, the most interesting thing that he did before he was an actor was he was a circus performer, and he worked in the circus with his best friend Nick Cra. He met Nick Cravat at a summer camp when Bert was nine and Nick was 11.

And during the summer camp, they would do lots of little hand to hand combat and they started doing acrobatics and they stayed friends throughout their teens. And this whole time Nick and Bert were still doing their whole acrobatic routine. And in 1931, Bert just decided, you know what? I don't want to go to school anymore.

I just want to. Run off and join the circus. And that's exactly what he did with Nick Cravat. And they had a little act that they called Lang and Cravat, and they joined the K Brothers circus where they got paid $3 a week to perform acrobatics. All right. So that explains a lot that he started out as an acrobat in the circus.

Yeah, they traveled around, he went back to new. Burt started acting in things and one day he got in an elevator. And who better to tell us how he got discovered than Burt Lancaster himself? Well, when I got out of the army in 1945, I quite accidentally met a man in an elevator who asked me if I was an actor.

And as I said to him, yes, I'm a dumb actor. Dumb actor is expression we use in a circus for when you don't talk, you just do an act and the rest is history. And he had a 45 year career. Acting in Hollywood, which is pretty incredible. He was 33 when he got his first film roll. Wow. Yeah. That's a late start.

Wow. Wow. You can just hear the jealousy in your voice sometimes. Just seething right now out. Just seething. I know. Get over it, dude.

All right. You love Burt Lancaster ier. I do. I love him. He's funny. I love his smile. What is your favorite Burt Lancaster film? He's made a lot of really good films, but hands down, sweet Smell of Success is my favorite film by him. All right. New York City newspaper writer JJ Hunsucker, holds considerable sway over public opinion with his Broadway column.

But one thing that he can't control is his younger sister, Susan, who is in a relationship with aspiring jazz guitarist, Steve Dallas Hunsucker, strongly disapproves of this romance and recruits publicist, Sidney Falco, to find a way to split the. No matter how ruthless the method, this is directed by Alexander mck Kendrick, who was a UK director, did a lot of the Alec Guinness movies.

The eing comedies he did The Man In The White Suit. The Lady Killers. But this is a really different kind of film than that. It's very dark. Has an incredible jazz score. Got Tony Curtis teaming up with your boy Lancaster Cinematography by James Wong. How? Yeah. The incredible. Cinematographer 
That's all you gotta say. Yeah, this guy does black and white like no one else. Music by Elmer Bernstein. An amazing score in this one. One thing with Bert Lancaster in this film, this just speaks to how good he is as an actor. He, the character that he plays, JJ Hunsucker, has no redeeming qualities and yet we still love.

Yeah, he has charisma and even though he's the embodiment of evil in this film, and you don't actually see his character for the first 20 minutes or so of the film, you hear people talking about him, and then by the time you actually meet him, you already have this image of who this guy is. So your expectations for him are really high.

Unlike when you join this podcast and they're really low, he's got a lot to live up to. And then not only does he live up to it, he excels and surpasses whatever you thought he was going to be. But as much as we love Burt Lancaster in this film, this is Tony Curtis's film. 100%. JJ is more of a supporting character.

Mm-hmm. He's like kind of this sense of malice that kind of sits over the entire film. And Tony Curtis just scrambling to keep his head above water. Mm-hmm. He'll do anything and JJ knows that, so he just manipulates him the entire time, just dangling that carrot just outta reach. It's a very, very dark film that shows the worst in humanity.

And that's why it's so good. There's a really amazing scene where JJ Hunsucker just walks out onto a balcony. And looks out over the city and the music swells and.

It just sends chills down my spine thinking about how good Na scene is. Who is the writer that he was supposed to be the thinly veiled version of? He said to be based on New York columnist Walter Winche. Yeah, Walter Winchell. That's right. Who I read also had an obsession with his sister and her sex life.

So Adam, if you had to pair Sweet Smell of Success with another movie for a double feature night, what would you pair? I'd pair this. A face in the crowd. 1957. Ooh, it came out same year. Yes. This is an incredible look behind the scenes of entertainment, and Andy Griffith plays a very JJ Hunsucker ES type of character.

Nice. That's a good one. Yeah. How about you? What would you do for your. Double feature. I'm gonna be bold Parrot with Citizen Kane. Oh yeah. Two portraits of Of megalomaniac. Exactly. Wow. That's great.  So we should probably talk about the films that he did with John Frankenheimer.

They had an ongoing relationship. They worked together five times and he did that whole thing on TCM. That kicked your obsession off. Yeah, and some of them are some of his best films. Birdman of Alcatraz is one that he directed, and that one's fantastic. But The Train 1964 Oh yeah. Has to be one of the best films that both of them ever.

Totally agree. John Frankenheimer is amazing and the pairing of him and Bert Lancaster is always good. The five films that they did together, the Train in 1964, young Savages, that was 1961, Birdman of Alcatraz 62. Seven days in May 64th, the train, 1964 Gypsy Moth in 1969, but I think we should talk about the train.

Yeah, I agree. Although Gypsy Moz is a very woefully unseen film. We'll just throw that out there. But yeah, let's talk about the train. So the train is easily one of the best action movies that I've ever seen. Yeah, I would agree. It just seems very real. That's because all the train crashes in the film are real.

They are not minia. Frankenheimer was literally playing with real trains for his train set. Yeah. Frankenheimer really liked doing documentaries. He wasn't looking to be a narrative director. He liked directing things about real things. This film keeps you on the edge of your seat until the very end, and I guess we should read the synopsis of what it's about.

Paris, August, 1940. With the Allied Army closing in German Commander and Art fanatic, Colonel von Valdi steals a vast collection of rare French paintings and loads them onto a train bound for Berlin. Laish a stalwart member of the resistance vows to stop the train at any cost. Calling upon his vast arsenal of skills, Laish unleashes a torrent of devastation and des.

Loosened rails, shattered tracks, and head-on collisions in an impassioned, suspense filled quest for justice, retribution, and revenge. It's black and white. In 1964 when a lot of films were not being done in black and white, and this is called the Last Great Action Film in Black and White. John Frankenheimer wasn't the original director for this film, Arthur Penn, who.

Adapted the screenplay from the book. The FA Art was the first director to be hired, but Penn and Lancaster disagreed to such a degree that he was fired after only two weeks on the job. And so, yeah, that's why he called Frankenheimer his buddy in mm-hmm. Work together. Before he knew he could pull off action scenes and he wanted to put an emphasis on action, Burt Lancaster reached out to John Frankenheimer personally.

About coming in and directing and Frankenheimer agreed without even reading the script. And Frankenheimer says that he accepted because he always wanted to visit Europe, but Lancaster said this. He said, Frankenheimer's a bit of a whore. But he'll do what I want. Yeah, Frankenheimer said the truth is really that he just could not say no to Burt Lancaster.

And he said that on his flight to Paris. Frankenheimer finally read the script and then he, afterwards, he said, I thought it was almost appalling. Neither Phish nor foul the damn train didn't leave the station until page one. From that moment, Frankenheimer's first task was to rewrite the script, which he successfully turned a dull script into an action thriller.

Some would say an action classic. Yes. During the shooting of this film, it uh, went over budget. It was shot entirely. In France. In France, yes. Oh, and one of the cool things that happened during this was Lancaster flew home and he was deathly afraid of flying. He was afraid of flying. He flew home to participate in the march on Washington with a Martin Luther King.

No way. And then flew back the next day. He felt that strongly about it. He was a big activist. Yeah. During the shooting of this film, it went well over budgets. You and your budgets. Yeah. You know how I like budgets? Yeah. It went up to 6.7 million, originally only budgeted at two. Wow. That's over budget.

That happens when you start smashing real trains together. But the cool thing was that during this period, they had access to all the surplus World War II locomotives and things that were just kind of sitting around rot. So they got 'em working. They just smashed them all together. Awesome. Yeah. I guess the big train collision sequence was shot full speed, 65 miles an hour.

And they cleared out like this entire town in order to shoot it just for safety, because when it derails, it derailed. Yeah. Yeah. This movie's so impressive though. It is. I mean, it holds up to today's standards of action. Mm-hmm. It really does. And that's because Frankenheimer was all about realism. No miniatures, no.

If I'm gonna crash a train, I'm gonna crash a goddamn train. There's a. Quote from Burt Lancaster while they were filming in France. He was being interviewed by a French newspaper and he said, I know what you have heard about me, that I'm always difficult and grab all the broads. It's not true. I'm difficult only some of the time and grab only some of the broads.

That's amazing. So, oh, I love it. Yeah. Everybody loves the action in the film, but it does get lambasted for Lancaster's performance cuz he's supposed to be part of the French resistance and does not have an accent. Yeah, but here's the thing. Burt doesn't do accents. Have you seen the rose tattoo? He's doing like this New York Italian guy thing.

It's not the best. So what you're saying is that we're the movie's better for him not attempting an accident? Yeah. Can you imagine this movie, but with Inspector Cleo at the helm? No.

Yes, you have for me the, oh, if you have one for me. Yes. Yeah, why don't the end of the block. Ask for passion flour. Shirley The Yokohama, but. And why should I do that? Oh, you want a massage, don't you? Yes, but I want it from you. I don't give massages, but you gave me one only this morning. See, you're mistaken.

Look, don't you try the tricks with me. I said the massage this morning from Inspector Queenland of the other of Scotland, the massage, and it was you that gave it to me. Message what you mean? Message. Look, I know what I mean. You lu. Now, do you, uh, do you not have for me the massage? It's fine. In his defense, he does not have a lot of dialogue.

That's true. In the last 33 minutes of the film, he speaks twice. He's got that awesome action scene where he is on top of a little tower above the train, and he slides down the ladder and then he runs, and then he jumps on the train all in one take. Yeah. And he actually did it. He did. Of course he did.

All right, so here's the big question. If you had to. With another film for a double feature night. Cuz you know, if you're watching Bert Lancaster, you should be watching too. What would you pair it with? I think I'd go against action because you're not gonna get better than this film. Right. So I'd probably go trash, you know, I'd pair it with some good trash.

Another train oriented trash film. Terra Train 1980. Oh, that one's awesome. Yeah. Terror Train starring Jamie Lee Curtis. Oh, come on. David Copperfield. Thank you. That's David Stars, David freaking Copperfield. You just can't beat a slasher movie set on a train starring a magician. Damnit doesn't get better than that.

How about you, Charlotte? What are you gonna do? See, I was also gonna go with a train theme, of course, and oh man, mine's not as cool as yours. Murder on the orient. And I think you could watch either one. The new one or, right. I was just gonna say, or the seventies, one version. Yeah. I think you could watch either one.

You got trains, you got murder, you got sleuthing. Either one's fine. Whole lot of sleuthing going on. Yeah, I agree. I think that would be a fun one too. Yeah. All right. The train. The train. Check it out. The train. You haven't seen it train. Definitely check it out. It's a classic.

One of the other great films that Frankenheimer directed with Burt Lancaster, seven days in May from 1964. Also, star. Kirk Douglas, who was in seven movies with Burt Lancaster during their careers. Whoa. Those guys really liked each other. They did. A lot of people think that they didn't get along. They got along.

Yeah, seven days in May. You know they're not hanging out on the weekends. They did seven films. I walk alone. Gun Fight at the Okay Corral, which, okay, corral cor, see we sing. They're singing around here. There's a lot of singing happening. I just worked on that one. I can't get that on my head after I hear it though.

Okay. Cor. Okay. Cor. They're the Olaw band. Make their final stand. Okay.

It's a terrible song. When the movie starts, you're like, really? You're gonna start it like this? The weird thing is, okay, the, it goes through the Okay corral and then it goes into Boot Hill. Boot hill, yeah. So cold and chill or whatever. Yeah. And then that's fine. That's the beginning. But then randomly in the middle of the movie, they're riding out again.

Boot Hill just outta nowhere, comes back so cold, so still so weird's because they, they know they don't want to end up in boot hill, chilling. All right, so what else did they do together? They also did the devil's disciple list of Adrian Messenger. Victory at Inten and Tough. Oh gosh, I forgot about tough guys.

Yeah, we have to talk about seven days in May because it's Frankenheimer. It's Dags. Cuz that doesn't Seven days in May. Seven days in May. So cold and gray if you're in la Are you ready or what? Yeah. United States military leaders plot to overthrow the president because he supports a nuclear disarmament treaty and they fear a Soviet sneak.

All right. That sounds like heavy stuff. It does because it is. Frankenheimer directs the hell out of this, and yeah, this is a drama with a capital D. It's the kind of scenario in a film that whether you want to admit it or not could easily happen at any time, which probably happens a lot of times behind the scenes that we don't know about.

During the filming of this, John F. Kennedy was president at the time and he had his own fears of this type of thing happening while he was in. And he was a fan of the film so much that he endorsed it by letting the people know that it was a film that was not only important, but one that should be made.

Here's Director John Frankenheimer to tell the story. We got a message from PS Allinger that the president was most anxious to see this movie made and that the president would do everything he could to make our life. In other words, give us access to the White House Secret Service people so that we could interview them and do our research and, uh, shoot outside the White House, the, uh, the riot.

And he would go to Hyannisport while we did that. And that's exactly what happened. But sadly, he was assassinated before the film was released and never got to see it. Oh, he never got to see it? No. Oh, that suck. Yeah. Yeah, I read that originally Kirk Douglas was supposed to play the, the general part that Bert Lancaster played, but he thought that Bert Lancaster was the guy for that, and so he took the secondary role to him just to get him in the movie.

And that was a really smart move because I can't imagine the roles reversed. No, he's so much more intimidating and authoritarian. Mm-hmm. It's great too, the scenes that those guys share on screen's, like verbal sparring. It is so good. Burt Lancaster is hardly in this film. Yeah, he's like that great secondary character.

A few Good Men and Jack Nicholson's character. I think he's only in the movie like 20 minutes or something like that. Mm-hmm When he's on screen, it's riveting and it's the same situation for this. And I love it too, cuz they set up that confrontation and when it comes it's, oh my gosh. Yeah. Here they are.

The two titans on screen together. Oh, this is gonna be good. You're a Niro colonel, a peddler, you sell. Are you sufficiently up on your Bibles to know who Judas was? Yes, I know who Judas was. He was a man I worked for and admired until he disgraced the four stars on his uniform. I love it. This was written by Rod Serling.

Oh yeah. We're talking Twilight Zone, rod Serling. He was really good at grounding things in a reality, plausible reality, but like a heightened reality. This is a great drama that I feel like everybody should see. And isn't, as, you know, widely seen as it used to be. This was a giant hit when it came out though.

There's not a lot of action in this film like there is with the train. The camera is constantly moving. It's full of camera pans and tracking and zooming in and out, which was not something that was really popular in filmmaking yet, but Frankenheimer was into that documentarian style filmmaking. So yeah, there's a lot of, especially in a drama like this, yeah, they're usually pretty static and yeah, he keeps it alive that way.

He does. And there's a lot of really cool wide shots that. Perfectly composed. A lot of interesting framing too. A lot of low angles and things like that. Yeah, that were certainly not common in a film like this at the time. All right. What about a double feature on this one? What would you do that's easy?

I'd say pair it with another film from 1964, Dr. Strangelove, or how I Learned to Stop Wearing and Love the Bomb, Stanley Krick. Oh, that is such a perfect choice. Imagine the night political intrigue. A bit of hilarity. It's a perfect double feature. It is, and they're like polar opposites. They. I say start with frankenheimer.

Start with the serious one, and then Yeah, end with the, with the comedy, with the Kubrick. Yeah. Yeah, totally. So beat that animal. My choice is certainly not even close to that level. I'd say 13 days. A Bay of Pigs drama. It's also a political intrigue thing, but it's very much this pot boiler kind of concept.

Yeah. Yours is way better though. I know, right? Yeah. I have to admit, mine is just sad. It's poultry compared to yours. Yeah. Hey, we can go do that double feature now if you wanna do that. Yeah, I would totally watch that. Write the second. All right. Another thing I have to mention about Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas, it's a little Oscar bit that they did in 1950.

So 1958 is the year that Burt Lancaster was in sweet smell of success. Kirk Douglas was in Pasa Glory and neither one received an Oscar nomination. So they came out and they did this little bit where they sing a song called It's Great Not to Be Nominated. Well, I guess, Burt, you haven't been nominated this year?

No. You haven't been either.

Congratulations. It's great not to be nominated. Great. Not to be nominated. Great Mary, to sit here and relax since we have been vested when not interested, but who stopped those knives in our backs. When a producer suggests a rule to us, he says the Oscar could be the go to. Comes March and they won't even give a measly scrolled to us.

It's great not to be buying for it. Great not to be sighing for it. March. Isn't that just the month for tax externally, each nominee a casual site to look at them. You'd never think they're tense and tight. Well, the best acting they've done this year, they've done tonight. Here. It's great not to be nominated.

Great. Not to be nominated, but just wait until next.

It's great not to be nominated. Great. Not Nominat nominated. Love it. So catchy. At this point in their career. Kirk Douglas had been nominated three times for best actor. Burt Lancaster had only been nominated once, and that was four from here to Eternity. So the next year you would think maybe they'll get nominated.

Burt was in Run silent, run deep. Kirk was in the Vikings, but neither one of 'em got nominated again. So what did they do? They brought 'em back to open the 1959 Oscar ceremony.

Now they got us opening this. I didn't think they were even gonna ask us back.

It's the wrong spot in the wrong show. And they pulled us first. Cause it's a strong show, but they told us it's so, it's all right. They said we beat. Just the thing here. And they said they turned out Franken, bing here, Franken, Bing. Who are, there's the mystery is alright,

they stay in the trades that were great in these roll. They must think they're talking to. Do We both know the part for which we give our soul the parts with the nice envelope, it must run, must be fleeing. Cause there comes the man who be B, C. But until next year, maybe our.

Is great.

And this one is hilarious because they do a bit of acrobatics. At the very end of the song, Kirk Douglas actually jumps up on Burt Lancaster's shoulders and Burt holds his legs and they walk around the stage like that, and then he, and then Kirk jumps off and Tumbles and Burt tumbles after him. It's so awesome.

I just love. This is the kind of stuff that I wish was on the Academy Awards. No. But yeah, they don't make 'em like they used to. And how can anybody say these guys didn't like each other? This just something they came up with. Yeah. Two years in a row. Right. They did that. Bert didn't have to wait too long to win his Oscar.

Two years later he won his first and only Oscar for Eler Gantry, which he beat out Jack Lemon in the apartment. Wow. For that one. Wow. And he has the best speech. It's short and. And really funny, when Ms. Gson handed me this, she very graciously said, so well earned. And that was a, a lovely thing to say. I want to.

Needless to say, I want to thank all the members of the academy who expressed this kind of confidence in voting for me, and right now, I feel so happy that I want to thank all the members of the academy who did not vote for me. Thank you all very much. I just love that he, he's such a nice guy. He's thanking everybody.

I love that it's short and sweet like that. I, I, So Kirk Douglas would have to wait a little bit longer for an Oscar. In fact, he was left waiting his whole life. Oh, because he never got one for best actor. He never did. No, they did give him an honorary Oscar, a k a bullshit Oscar that Alfred Hitchcock also got in 1996.

Oscars are also given for bodies of work too. Yeah. Hindsight's 2020. Yeah. So they did actually appear in the Oscar. One more time together. They did in 1985, they came out and did a little bit, but with Michael Douglas. Oh, nice. With them. And they introduce the award for best screenplay.

So we've had themes or buckets for the movies that we've talked about that are Lancaster based. He did a lot of other movies that were just one-offs. I have to mention his swashbuckling movies because I don't think a lot of people are very familiar with that. Burt Lancaster, again, he has his whole circus acrobatic background and he really got to show those off with his buddy Nick Keva in two films.

The Flame in the Arrow from 1950 and the Crimson Pirate 1950. Both of these films are so good and his hair is super flu. The the flu meter is off the charts in this one super flu, and they're both swashbuckling. We don't need to read the plot. You know what the plot is, right? Flame in the Arrow. 1950. This was only four years after Bert's screen debut, and this was the first time that people got to see Bert's acrobatic abilities.

Before this, he'd only been the tough guy that was in a bunch of film. No. This kind of changed the perception of his character. Mm-hmm. At this point, he'd only been heavys. It was an action packed comedy, but also this was the very first time audiences would see Burt Lancaster in color. Oh, there you go.

This was in glorious technical. This. Is a new side of his abilities mm-hmm. That people hadn't seen before. Warner Brothers ran a publicity stunt when the film was coming out, where they were offering a million dollars to anyone that could prove Burt Lancaster did not do his own stunts. In the film, of course, they included a legal technicality that made it impossible for anyone to claim the prize, and there was even a stunt.

Who tried to claim that he stood in for Bert in three scenes, but he couldn't successfully prove that he had done anything more than me at Stand-In. Yeah. We all know he does his own stunts. They make it evident in the way that these movies are shot too. Yeah, exactly. And the other thing that they did, laying and Cravat revived their old circus Act and they went on the road with the Cole Brother Circus for several.

Around the release of the film and it's rumored that they were getting paid 11 grand a week in salary, which was considerably more than the $3 a week that they were getting paid the first time. So, oh, that, that's really great way to publicize though, doing their, can you imagine? That'd be really cool.

This film was a huge hit. It was one of the biggest grossing films of 19. And can we talk about that one? How could it not be? The one scene that really impressed me, it was almost a Jackie Chan level where they have that big giant wooden pole. Oh, yes, yes. And they're swinging it around and knocking people down, but they're constantly using it as a prop to do other things.

Like Yeah. It's like a 30 foot pole. Yeah. To climb up to another window to knock people over, drop it across like a expanse and walk across like a. A group of people. It's so cool. It just goes on and on and it's like a 10 minute sequence. Yeah. With this pole, and they just keep finding new ways to use it.

It's really great. All right. So if you had to double feature this one, and you can't say Crimson Pirates, we're gonna talk about that really quick. Next, what would you pick? So if I had to pick something to go with this, I'd say, why don't we keep the swashbuckling going? Yeah. And let's keep the suntans going.

We'll pair that with Zorro, the Gay Blade, 1981. Oh my starring Mr. Suntan himself, George Hamilton, in multiple roles. The most memorable role in this one is the very non pcce Zoro that prefers pink satin and a. To traditional black

that is a little more like it. 20th Century Fox and Melbourne Simon Productions present. George Hamilton and George Hamilton. And

man, that is a hard one to beat. I'm gonna go with the buddy comedy theme and say, Gunden Carrie Grant. That's a great movie. Yeah, it is. Gunga Den is so funny. It is permanently underrated too. It's not one that people talk about when you talk about Carrie Grant. You don't think Gunga Den People have seen it, but I mean, yeah, people like it, but it's not an instant Carrie Grant.

It's not the first one people think of. Yeah, you associate with them. Especially that kind of movie cuz it's an action comedy and you don't think action comedy when you think. So the other swashbuckling movie that he did is the Crimson Pirate, and I think we actually like this one a little bit better than the flame in the arrow.

This one is so cartoonish and that's apparent by the opening in the film. Burt Lancaster swings up on his ship and he looks at the camera and he breaks the fourth wall and just starts talking to you. Gather around lads and lass. Gather around. You've been Shanghai Deboard for the last cruise of the Crimson Pirate.

A long, long time ago. The far, far Caribbean. Remember in a pirate ship, in pirate waters in a pirate world. So you know that this is gonna be goofy. It's fun, it's cheesy, filled with it's kind gags kind of a send up of the Errol Flynn swashbuckling films. It's making fun of those. Remember there's that peg leg pirate that keeps walking around and his peg leg.

It's getting stuck in the, gets stuck in between the flakes. That's great. Yeah. And then there's that one. There's a SMA four scene. Do you remember the SIM four scene? I don't. I wish we could put a clip in here, the sim, but you can't. It's all the talking through waving the flags. It's gotta be the funniest sim four scene on film.

So Nick Cravat is in this one. He plays a Mute Pirate because he had a really thick Brooklyn accent and they just didn't think that would go well. I don't know if that's true, but he's so great as the Mute buddy. I don't know, it's every time Lancaster opens his mouth. He also has a very thick New York accent as well.

Which is part of what kind of makes it funny. Any role he's in, he's this New York guy, so there's one character in the film that even comments on the pair of them together and he says, this one can't talk and this one can't keep quiet, which is is perfect. Speaking of Nick Cravat, I don't know if everybody knows this, but he played the grim.

In that famous Twilight Zone episode Nightmare at 20,000 feet. Yeah. The one with William Shatner, the one with the gremlin on the plane. Yeah. That was Nick Cravet out there. Nick Cravet. Yeah. Playing the Gremlin 1963. All right, Adam, let's both do one more Burt Lancaster film. What's one that you think that people don't know that they should know?

Okay. You know, he did a number of westerns. Yep. He did a bunch of really strong ones, like Vera Cruz is very good. I love the professionals. That's like a man on a mission one. A team on a mission one, it's really good. But if I had to pick one of his westerns, I'd probably pick the scalp hunters. Oh that one's so good.

1968. I like this one cuz it has a lot of social commentary buried in with it too. Yeah. And by the name you think it's just gonna be some cowboys versus Indians kind of thing And it's not, um, it really has nothing to do with Indians. Yeah. So this movie was also a 1968 directed by Sidney Pollock. So good.

Yeah. Forced to trade his valuable furs for a well-educated, escaped slave of rugged trapper vows to recover the pelts from the Indians and later the renegades that killed them. First we have to talk about the cast. This has in addition to our boy, our boy Lancaster, we've got Kelly Savas. Yes. As the leader of the Bad Guys.

Shelly Winters. Shelly Winters as a. Prostitute that is trying to better herself all the time. Oh, she's so good. She's hilarious. In this film. OIE Davis, yes. Plays the Black slate. He's so great. He is amazing. He's the most educated person in the film, but he's also the most helpless. It's wonderful. Yeah, and the movie is really the three of them.

Ossie Lancaster, and Shelly Winters. And there's such this mismatched trio and all your expectations of what these characters are gonna be are completely wrong. Yeah. So yeah, 1968, you're thinking at this time all the spaghetti westerns were coming out, all of the protagonists were anti-heroes. Mm-hmm.

There was tons of violence in these films. This is not that film, and that's why it kind of really stands out amongst all the other ones that were released around this. This is a Comedy Western, but with a big social undertone, which really sets it apart from everything else. At its core, you have two unlikely friends.

You have a brutish white man played by Bert, and then you have a very well spoken black slave. Played by Ossie Davis. And the pair has a love-hate relationship. Ossie Davis is a house slave, so he does not have any of the skills. He's overeducated for what his status is in society at the time. So he's the smartest guy in the room most of the time.

But the problem is he doesn't have any of the survival skills. Survival skills. Yeah. So he has to rely on Burt Lancaster to actually get the food and Yeah. Who's a complete oath in this movie, which is great. Mm-hmm. And then you have tele Savas plays the bad guy who. Just a complete idiot. But he's always pandering to Shelly Winters cuz he just is in total love with her.

Mm-hmm. And she wants to better herself. She doesn't wanna be a hooker. She wants to be educated and enlightened. You brought up a really good thing about this film. You said it's an allegory. For the Civil Rights Movement because Ossie Davis' character can't navigate the world outside of the world he grew up in.

He has to learn how to do that. Yeah. He ultimately has to stand up for himself. Yeah, that's And fight back. Fight back. It takes the entire film for him to learn how to do that and Right. And then he becomes an equal with those that he's escaping and riding with by the end. Compatriots, they're brothers and they need each other.

This is a really good film and I think people just write it off as one of Sydnee. Pollock's not his best films. Sydnee Pollock has made so many good films. Exactly. They shouldn't, the dialogue is sharp in this. He turns everything on its head. It really does, but it's entertaining. It's absolutely entertaining.

It makes you laugh. Sydnee Pollock, I feel like this is one of his films that people should revisit. It's very overlooked. It really is. Scalp Puns, 1968. Check it out.

All right, Charlotte. So one last one. Let's do one more. Your pick. I'm staying in 1968, and you probably could have guessed this because I gotta bring up the swimmer. Yeah, I knew it. I knew before you said it what it was gonna be. I think this one has actually got a lot more acclaim in the last decade than it had before.

I think it was a big secret. Yeah. I mean, this was a gigantic bomb when it came out. This. But it has been playing a lot of revival theaters recently. Yeah. People, it has a big cult following. Yeah. People have started to really embrace the film for what it is. The synopsis on this one, Netty Merrill has been away for most of the summer.

He reappears at a friend's pool. As they talk, someone notices that there are pools spanning the entire valley. So he decides to jog from pool to swim the whole valley on his way home. As he stops in each pool, his interactions tell his life. This movie is just really bizarre and you just can't look away, and it's not in the, it's a train wreck.

You can't look. It's just you're wondering what is the point of this movie? Everything in this film is intentional and it's well crafted. It's a bunch of vignettes, basically. Well, it's vague too. So this is based on a John Cheever's short story too. John Cheever wrote all these stories about the idol middle class, upper middle class at the time.

So it was all social commentary, right? Like all of his stories were, and this film is no different. They put him in different situations and people that are representative of larger classes of people, right. Each the way and the pool that he goes to. Correct? Yeah. It's a whole different scenario. But all these people stand for kind of.

Larger expansions on people types, stereotypes. The party sequence early. Joan Rivers too, before her nose job. It's just a series of vignettes where he's going from pool to pool, he's going into people's backyards, swimming through their pools on his way to his house. Ted, no one really questions that.

Nobody questions it. That's the oddest aspect of it, but it's played so straight and that's what's weird about the film, cuz you keep thinking. All right. What's going on here? This doesn't seem like anything that would really happen. It's really bizarre, but it's being played completely normal, right? This guy does this all the time.

And so what draws you to this film? Is it the oddity of it or, I don't know what it is about this one. One thing about it, it's weird, but it's, I have an idea. He is completely shirtless the entire film. He is in a bathing suit. The whole. That's not what it is. Remember in that scene where he like, sure. He, we all believe that Charlotte.

We all believe that. How about the scene where he is racing that horse? Remember that that scene, he's like running that horse. I feel like. Doesn't he beat the horse too? I think he might beat that race horse. I think he beats that horse. He's faster than the horse. Faster than a horse, Eddie. He's loving it.

He's got this big grin on his face when he is running. Teeth are out. His teeth are always out. Yeah. We refer to it as the grin. The grin, yeah. This film is just weird. It's almost like an extended episode of the Twilight Zone. It's kind of what it feels like, and we won't give away the ending on this one.

This film was actually shelved for two years because the studio had no faith in it. The studio actually called in Sydney Pollock to direct series of re. It came out in 1968, but critics didn't like it. Audiences didn't like it, and it was a disaster at the box office. Yeah, gigantic bomb. But I do love the strange dreamlike quality of this film.

There's something about it. I really like this film too. I don't know what it is about it. There's a quote that I have from Burt Lancaster about it. He said it needed some kind of strange, weird approach to capture the audience and make them realize that in a way they were not looking at anything. And when someone asked him about the script, he also said, I don't know why two men in white coats don't come.

Take this guy away. That's great. All right. So, okay. We gotta end it with a double feature. All right. What do you double feature this one with? I'm gonna say another one of my letterbox top four. I would pair it with being there. Because the lead characters are quiet and odd, and they're kind of ciphers for the audience.

They are both. Both of them are, yeah, and they both have very thought provoking endings, which we're not gonna talk about the swimmer's ending because it's one you should just see. Yeah, we highly recommend you see it. Okay. So yeah, that's a great choice being there. Always choice. Mm-hmm. What do you got?

I've got the loved ones. Oh man, that is good. Yeah. It's another 60 satire. This one's skewering the funeral business. Yes. For laughs instead of Shallowness and Stars. Jonathan Winters in two separate roles and, uh, Rodger. Rod Steiger. Yeah. Yeah. Rod Steiger's Amazing in that film. He kind of owns that movie.

Yes, he does. It is also a very weird movie. Yeah, that's a good one. Paul Williams is also in it. You have to mention Paul Williams.

All right, so thanks for joining us this week. We finally gave you finally that Lancaster episode that we've been teasing for the best Valentine's Day gift ever. Charlotte? No, this Charlotte loves him. This was a really easy one to do just because I love talking about Berlin, Lancaster, and you know, actually I have a fun, a funny story and about a year into my job, I was at an audio session and the audio engineer.

Just randomly says, I've been working on a lot of Burt Lancaster films lately, and the person I was with just looked at me and started cracking up because she knew exactly why he'd worked on so many Burt Lancaster films. You gotta preserve that. You gotta preserve the Lancaster, preserve the flu hair, man.

You do that hair, you can't let that flu die. Mm-hmm. That's power. So I gotta say if there's one Burt Lancaster film on his Im DB that I do not recommend, and that is Three Sailors and a Girl that is a terrible movie and he only shows up at the very end and says hi and then walks off. It is horrible. Do you remember that one?

Yeah. It's a terrible musical, first of all. Oh, it's so bad. And we were waiting for BET Lan the whole Lancaster time come. And then afterwards we found out that he was just working at a, like on the stage next door. The stage next door, and the director requested that he come over and just say something.

It's terrible. Do not watch that film. Yeah. Just do yourself a favor. Watch bandwagon instead. Burt Lancaster did so many great movies. He's more than just the guy on the beach. He had his own production company, which we didn't even talk about. Oh yeah. We didn't talk about that at all. Yeah. Yeah. He started a production company.

First it was Norma Productions in, what was it, 1948? I think. He'd only been acting for two years. And he realized I need to start being the master of my own destiny, right. And choosing my own products. And this is the only way to really make money doing it. So he started that Hect Lancaster production company, and then later they were joined by hill.

So it was what? Hill Hack Hill. Hack Hill Lancaster. Yeah. Hack Hill, Lancaster. Which was around until the late fifties. See, he wasn't the first one to do that. No, not the first at all. But at the time when he formed HEC Tail Lancaster, they were the most successful. Yeah. He did a lot with Hal Wallace. Yeah.

He produced movies that he wasn't even in too. Mm-hmm. Usually those are vanity things where you're basically just looking for material that you develop for yourself. He was interested in way more than that. They bought books. They developed books for. Actors. He produced films that he wasn't in. Yeah. He was a trailblazer in that way.

Much more than just a grin and some fluffy hair. That's right. I hope you've enjoyed going down the Burt Lynn caster path with us. Hope you maybe learned about a movie that you've never heard before. I know Charlotte did. I'm looking at her face right now. I got a big COR on my face. So there's so many other films we could talk about.

There are, but this is a good way to start. So you can get your Lancaster obsession on too. Yeah. Join me, won't you? He's a great actor and criminally underappreciated. Don't talk about him like you do. Kirk Douglas or Charlton Heston. Everybody knows who Burt Lancaster is, but they don't talk about. In the same breath as those other people.

Yeah. He was an actor that could really do any kind of role in a way. Yeah. He tried to challenge himself. He did. Anyhow, if you wanna tell us what your favorite Burt Lancaster film is, you can write us a note. We are perf damage podcast gmail.com. You can send us a note at Twitter. We are at perf Damage.

You can also check out our letter box where we will list every Burt Lancaster film we discussed today. Our username is perf damage. Bet you didn't see that coming. You can also let us know which one you think his hair is the best at too. Yeah. Which, because we're obsessed with his hair. Yeah. Which film has the flu?

Feast hair. Flaming the arrow. It might be. It's pretty flu in that. Oh, Elmer Gantry. It is super flu. Oh, super flu. Yeah. Oh, it was way flu in that. Yeah. When he's preaching on stage, sliding across that stage. Bouncing around. Yeah. Yeah. It's all over the place. It's good. He's grinning. He's fluffing. That's a good one.

That is Prime. Prime. Lancaster. Yeah. If you haven't seen that one. Check it out. So many to check out. Just start now. Alright, come back next week. Who knows what we'll be talking about? Oh, we kind know what we'll be talking about, but let me guess. Movies. Something to do with movies. What else would we talk about, Charlotte?

These movies are really good. I really like movies. All right. Thanks for joining us here. On on. See, I just threw you off. Yeah, you did. Yeah, you did. Oh, you're so easy. Yeah. Thanks for joining us here on, on.

Charlotte, give us a brief bio for those that don't know who, Burt ca Burt. So give us a brief bio. Just start the whole sentence over. So Charlotte, why don't you give us a brief bio about Burt Lancaster. For those don't that don't know about him, you need to get yourself. And now Colonel Martin Jigs Casey believes he has learned something very disturb.

Information. Oh my God. Jesus Christ. I can't read. You can't read. You're fired. What is your favorite Burt Lancaster film? He's made a lot of really good films, but hands down, sweets, smell of success. Ugh. Say it again. Hands down, sweet se, ugh. How many outtakes are we gonna have today?