The Offence (1973) — "Nothing I have done can be one half as bad as the thoughts in your head."

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Hello everyone, and welcome to the Culture Cast. I am your host, Christashi, and I'm joined by my two good friends, all the way from somewhere in the Midwest. I guess we're technically all somewhat in the Midwest. Mike might not consider himself in the Midwest, all the way from Chicago. Your friend of mine, Spencer Parson.

Hello, glad to be here. And he's the host of the Projection Booth and he programmed this entire month. Mike White, I'm sorry. Guys, I got to turn off the lights over here. There's a little bit of a glare on my screen.

TASiS. You think jj Abrams watches this movie is just like the lens flare. It's so good. It's so good is that lens sclare? It's what is it?

No, it's I think it's a super imposition. Yeah, that's what it looks like. Is I keep thinking it's the light from like the inquiry, like the third degree type light. I thought it was the dentist's chair. That's what it looks like looking up into the light at the dentist chair.

Oh yeah, I don't see a man with tremendous amounts of nosehair hanging over me. So is it safe? On this episode of the Culture Cast, we are continuing Mike White May with a look at nineteen seventy three's Sidney Lumet directed film The Offense. So. The film is directed by Sidney Lumett, written by John Hopkins, based on a play of the same name by the same author.

It stars Sean Connery as detective Sergeant Johnson who kills a child molester question mark and uh, yeah, that's the entire movie, the end. We can go home now. No, it's about a cop who kills a man in custody and the repercussion surrounding that. And also it's a character study on what happens to police officers as they're exposed to violence and crime and the things that they have to deal with On a daily basis. Also, this film is told in a non linear format, so there is that as well, which is always exciting.

Mike, I'm going to kick it to you first, since it is your month, and you programmed the film, Why the Offense and why Sidney Lumet film? Well? And was that also a reference to Blazing Saddles that it was? Okay, wow weird? Yes, it was, thank.

You for going home. This is the third Blazing Saddles reference we've had in seventeen minutes. So why did I pick this one? I've always wanted to see this movie just I had heard about its reputation as being spectacular. I had never seen it before.

And when it comes to to the Lumette connection, yeah, that I did not even realize when I was picking films that I was picking three Sidney Lamett films. So, as we talked about last time, I was very familiar with the Anderson tapes, had never seen The Hill, had never seen The Offence, And I am really glad that I picked this one. I so far feeling pretty good about this month, really hoping, you know, like the next two aren't duds, but feeling pretty good about this And man, oh man, what a got bunch of a movie. This is Yeah, Spencer, what about you? I know you're you're rare and chomping at the bit to talk.

So what did you think of the offense? You know, I didn't. I didn't know anything about this movie going in. Uh man alive. Why is this not a bigger deal?

Why is this a lesser known Sidney Lmett and lesser known Sean Connery movie? Because it's like Sidney Lymett firing on all cylinders. Sean Connery one of his most interesting performances, for sure. And and you know, also I was looking into it a little bit, and uh, Connery fought to get this movie made. You know, this movie happened as Connery's price for doing another Bond Uh.

And I'm like, well, you know it was it Diamonds or Forever? Maybe that yeah, yeah, well then Diamonds Are Forever, which is a pretty terrible Bond film. All worth it if it got this movie made. No kidding, no kidding, Yeah this, Mike, we talked on the last episode Mike and I did with Cullen and Mike you had brought that up. Actually, the Anderson tapes possibly being the Bond film kind of you know, one in, one out.

No, to Spencer's point, and I think we realized that in the last episode. It is this film. And to your point, Spencer, and to what you said, Mike, my lord, what a film look Sean Connery. We all come into Sean Connery from a different spot, Spencer, Mike and I have talked about our Sean Connery kind of affection and feelings towards him. So this is your opportunity.

What are your thoughts on mister Connery as an actor and kind of just his his body of work in general, because one of the things we had been talking about was Connery tends to not get recognized for the things he did outside of Bond a whole lot, which is a shame because he seems like and this movie definitely is adding a huge drop into that bucket. He's a really fucking great act capital an actor, not classically trained, but a capital a actor. Nonetheless, Yeah, I mean, I would say this this movie is like, you know, up there for his most impressive performances. I'm trying to I mean, it's like, you know, I love I love him in Time Bandits, which is a very different kind of flavor from from Bond.

You know, I'm not the biggest Untouchables fan, but I really like him in that movie. But that's that's that's like, uh, you know, that's a fine performance. But compared compared to the offense, Yeah, the Untouchable is great performance, but like a cartoon in comparison to this, uh yeah, really remarkable and you know, uh really I think really ballsy at the time, uh to uh to really take you know, because in a certain way, you know, Bond is not a cop, but he's a law enforcement adjacent character. Uh, and for Connory to take the sort of one of the things I like about Connery is Bond is is like, you know, he's suave and everything, but he's also a bully. But this this pushes fully into the like bad cop direction and puts me in the mind of of like, you know, I was actually comparing this a lot.

It's a very different kind of bad cop, very different kind of performance. But it reminded me of you know, Hackman as as Popeye Doel a little bit for the level of like kind of obsessive figure now much more psychological than Popeye Doyle. We don't get into what Popeye Doyle's you know, neuroses are except the obvious racism that has expressed at various points throughout you know, the French connection. But yeah, this just uh and and just in general, this is one of those. The seventies is the greatest era of the police procedural and this is this is another great one.

Yeah. I was reminded a little bit while I was watching this of did you guys ever see the Pledge with Nicholson from two thousand and one, Yeah, which was based on the book. It's got a lot of translations, but it happened abroad daylight or cold light of day. I've watched those, that's those were earlier versions, and it's it's similar insofar as there's child murder and I we go all the way back to m if not earlier than that when it comes to child murder, but this whole idea of the obsessive cop who's going to do anything and everything that he can to catch this child murderer, and just the lengths that he goes to to try to figure out who this person is and track this person down. You get a lot more feel in these other films as to the absolute guilt of the person.

And I love that there is such a big question mark over this. And I also, you know, Chris, you mentioned the non linear storytelling. I mean, once we get into the movie, what about twenty minutes into this thing, Like once once Connery goes home from this horrible day of a child being taken, she's what the third child and a series of things, and I was like, is this child being raped? Are they being murdered? It sounds like the killer has or the offender has not gone to that level that it is rape, it is not murder.

And you know they even address that like, well, at least she's okay, and it's like, yeah, no, it's not okay. Like she's alive, but she now has this memory that she's going to contend with with the rest of her life. Once they get into Connery going home to his wife, I'm like, oh. This was based on a play. I'm just like, all right, this is very play like.

But my god, like there are after the first like I said, twenty twenty five minutes, maybe it's even a little bit more than that. After that chunk, we get three big chunks of movie. That's the Sorry to get so technical when I say chunk, but three big chunks of movie where it is basically two people sometimes a few more in a room going at it. This is such an acting exercise and I am. Here for it.

Just the performance from his wife in this, the performance from from Trevor Howard in this, the performance from h is Ian Bannon, and then you've got Connory just going toe to toe with them every single time. And then for me, it's that whole question of can you take a play and make it into a movie and not make it feel like a play. So once you start getting some of these images from inside of Connory's head, seeing some past crimes that have affected him, seeing him recast as the person that is doing this horrible thing to children, seeing that to coin a phrase in the cold light of day, where you're like, was he the person that's doing this? Like casting doubt on him? Even like I don't think that we're supposed to come away from this movie being like, oh, well, obviously Johnson was the real murderer, you know, the real culprit here.

I don't think so. I think he's seeing these venal thoughts that are coming from his interaction with Baxter and from all of the years of just this horrible stuff that he has been seeing since he was like a patrolman on the beat, and he has finally come to the part where he cannot take it anymore. What an amazing psychological study of one particular person. Yeah. Well, and from the time that he finds the girl, so one is that like they're doing the big search party.

But then it goes in close on Connery and as he seems to hear her, you know, in the bushes somewhere, he suddenly becomes a tracker where the way that his behavior is shot feels guilty. Even as he's saving her. He has to hold her against the ground because she just wants to run away, which on the one level makes sense he's going to save her, but on another level, it feels like he is attacking her. And then when the rest of the cops come in and they find him with the girl, there's a way in which, again it's shot that makes Connery look guilty, and we know from context that he's not, but it's the way that it feels, and it's setting us up for the rest of this movie. Absolutely, those lights on him, he looks like he's in that spot, like he looks like he is the guilty party.

The way he's leaning over her. You're sitting there thinking is he about to fucking molest this girl? This is fucking crazy. And even the way that he finds her to your point, turns off his flashlight. It's almost like a Will Graham kind of thing, Like he gets in the head of the killer and it's like if I were the killer or sorry I keep saying killer even though he hasn't murdered.

The way that he gets into the true, true, yes, the way that he gets into that mindset and he is the one that is able to track down this girl and where she's at that that's like, okay, he has really Like I think the comparison to Manhunter is very appropriate. He's gotten into the headspace of this horrible person who can do horrible things. Now he sees himself doing that. The reason why Will Graham went so fucking crazy, like before Manhunter even starts, is because he could empathize and he could get into like a Hannibal Lecter's head. This is the same thing for me, where Conery can get inside of this guy's head and it scares the b Jesus out of him.

Yeah, I'm surprised, Spencer. You mentioned this that this movie, especially Connery's performance, isn't more well regarded. I mean, I appreciate that Ian Bannon is great in the movie, and he is, he was nominated for a Bathtub Yeah, but Sean Connery in this movie is putting in a lot of work play. I mean, Anderson Tapes is like it's playing against type. This is playing against type, like really playing against type for Connery.

And to your point, Mike about like getting inside of his head and like like seeing his thought process and what he's doing. We don't get to see that with Bond That's not a Bondian thing. Like Mon's monologue is all internal, like it's all an internal monologue with himself, this character. We get to see that, and so it's interesting because rarely do we get to see inside of a character that Connery plays so deeply and intimately in a way that you know, by the end of the movie, Connery is like in genuine tears trying to get some level of empathy from this person that he I mean, I mean again, he kind of you know, that whole scene is completely out of control when we get there. But my point being like it's rare that we get to see this closely into a character that Connery is playing at this level, especially around this time when it's like just barely.

Post boon exactly. Yeah, it's it's a really remarkable performance. And the the the sort of the shifts in a lot of places in the movie, the shifts from vulnerability into violence and rage are are really fascinating. You know. It's like at at the in the big middle sort of play like session, but it's shot so well, like so beautifully shot.

The scene with his wife and she kind of has to beg him to open up about what is going on with him in this case, and he he unloads all of this internal pain, but without without her even provoking him. The unloading of the pain turns into the provocation to abuse her. And here she is just trying to listen, just trying to you know, uh, to be helpful. Uh. You know, it's I read I read her performance as still being in love with somebody that she knows hates her, uh, and that that's that's where that's where things have gone in this relationship.

And there's a point which it feels like, oh they're maybe maybe they're going to work something out. They're making a connection and it's it's almost like at the most hopeful moment of his opening up, he shifts into abuse and like, you cannot see this side of me. This can't be allowed. And Connery pulls off that turn so well and then goes through not as big but similar terms turns with uh, you know, with with with Ian Bannon later as the as the suspect who who he ultimately kills. Yes, yeah, the it's like he's never opened up to her before, and it's like all of this stuff comes flooding out and she just has a moment of hesitation, that whole thing where he tells her this story of what happened to him all of these years ago.

She can't take it. She goes and throws up, and for him, that's weakness and he can't have that. And that's basically like now that's his excuse of, well, I tried to open up to you, you couldn't handle it. Fuck you. And just again, the abuse just keeps coming out, and you know, like, oh, when he starts talking about that she's old and he doesn't find her attractive, and it's just you're hitting below the belt every single time, you know, like, I don't know how many of us have been in relationships like that.

But it's just like, oh shit, this is real bad stuff, and yeah you did. And again she is just going right back and forth. Vivian merchants as Maureen is just killing it, killing this thing, and just yeah, to have them going back and forth, and yes, we're moving from room to room and stuff, and I'm just like okay, yeah, yeah, kind of playlike but this is okay. I'm here for it just because I just want to see this acting like this is such an exercise for me. And I'm just like yes, yeah, I'm like, oh wow.

And that's Connery. And like, you know, when when when we did Raking on Bond Chris, we were just like, yeah, he's great, he's so cool. He's pretty great, but he wasn't given anything to work with. You know. It's just like all right, there's no pathos.

It's basically a comic book movie. You know. Sorry anybody that's upstended by that, but these are basically like little spy stories and stuff. Yeah, John Connery pretends to be an Asian man in one and like gets away with it. Okay.

Cool here, it's just like he's got nothing, you know, he's got he's got the hat. He's not wearing the piece anymore. You know, he's just like not wearing the tucks. He's just wearing that that big reddy jacket and everything. And my god, he commands the screen every single time he's on there, and he.

Just looks big. He just looks like he is so big. And when it comes to like the interactions with Ian Bannon, it just you're just like, my god, how big are is? It's his hands because he can fit this guy's whole head between his two hands. Jean Connery is a big man, yes he is.

And I this is this is an area where I got to say that that like, uh, Sidney Lumet really obviously, you know, adapted a lot of plays, but is really next level in just positioning and moving the camera and moving the people. You know, two people in a room talking for I don't know, this scene is what fifteen minutes is a nice big chunk A movie might even be longer than that, but but it's it never it never like we can spot that, yeah, was a play or whatever, but it is total cinema in the way that the camera approaches the action between these two people. It you know, sure we get some shot in reverse, but it never settles into that for very long. There they're you know, their physical relationships to one another, how they how they move, how they dodge and perry and chase, you know, around the room is really incredible, just like a masterclass in how you know cinema.

Capturing two people trying to communicate is you know, it is and can be such an amazing thing, and that scenes that go down the rabbit hole are so worthwhile, like you know, as cinema not just adapting from a play, but you know, cinematically taking the time and just focusing on these people for the length of time that it takes. Man hats off. It's just like masterful some of the Who Met's best work because it's so hard. I mean, this is like at the you know, Long Day's Journey and Tonight, like you know, tackling Eugene O'Neil territory. I think in terms of how he's visualizing this extremely intense drama between these people, and both of these actors are just on fire.

The amazing way I think about it, because I don't know if Twelve Angry Men was just a teleplay or if it was also a play play because that is set down right, and it's just the one setting. Like obviously, you have a little bit at the beginning with the you know, the judge saying like, okay, you know you're charged, go back in the deliberation room and don't come back out until you have a verdict. And you get the little thing at the end with the old man saying goodbye to Henry Fonda. But the rest of it is feels like a play. But he shoots it so well and just you know, makes it so that you know, the god those faces and those close ups again just like an amazing array of actors in that particular film, just so well shot.

And then I think about my other favorite Lumet, which is sorry, yeah Lumet, which is death Trap, Like I forget that he directed that as well, which is it's great because that one ends with the reveal. And again I can't remember if that was a play or not, but even in the movie itself, the movie okay, but the movie comes a play at the end of it, like you are suddenly like thrust into you know, like with those flashing lights of the lightning and everything, and then suddenly we cut from we are watching the movie to we are watching the play that was written by the people that were we were just watching in the movie part of the movie. And I just love that. And yeah, he's amazing, like these these adaptations and just the way that he shoots the stuff again, Death Trap never Like I was a young man when I saw that.

I probably saw that first run when it was out. I didn't know that it was a play. I didn't know anything about anything back then. But it's just like now I watch it, I'm just like, yeah, I can tell it's a play, but he shoots it so fucking well. It does not feel like, yeah, we're just stuck here, you know.

And Chris we talked about that even with the Hill, like so much of that takes place in like two three sets, that's it, but it is he just lets these actors and that's all you need. Yeah, if you know how to. Cast well and you get good actors who elevate any that they're given. I mean, I won't say anything, but I mean damn near anything, you know. I think you stick with those actors and you continue to work with them.

And Sidney Lumett saw that in Connery clearly because I know, we haven't watched a non Lumet film yet this month, Mike, so it's kind of hard to say, yeah, next week, right, it's kind of hard to say, like, well, Connor, you know, outside of Loumett, Connery is still a great actor. I know he is, because I'm it's just Untouchables and other things. But in terms of like his serious stuff, Lumett seems to be able to get a really good serious performance out of Sean Connor. But again, Sean Connery is such a great actor. It's it's been in there this whole time.

It's just the directors that work with Connery. I just don't think that was the expectation. I guess with the guy who played James Bond, I would like to point out it is very funny to me something else about Connery that just cracks me up. Post Bond, the man was rarely seen without facial hair, rarely see which is fucking hilarious, like he and he and for me, I mean obviously, when you think of him as Bond, he's clean shaven. He would clean shave for never say never again.

But guys rarely clean shaven post Bond. It's either a mustache, or a beard or the two or in the name of the Rose, like, you know, the whole thing. It's I love it because I think it makes Connery look more gruff. I think he looks more gruff with facial hair. He looks more intimidating with facial hair.

He looks a little angrier with facial Yeah. Absolutely. Did you realize Chris that Ian Bannon is also in the Hill, that he's Harris one of the guards? Not really because again, like most of those guys are just wearing helmet. Yeah, he looks so different and it's only a few years like that, what was that sixty five?

And this is what seventy three? Yep, that's right. It's not like time was being cruel to him. He just he's kind of a chameleon. Like I was looking at pictures of him and I was like, wow, he can really make himself look very different, and he just carries himself so you know, kind of like it.

It's so funny because you're watching this and he never asks like why did you bring me in? You know what's going on? Like just the way that he's introduced is this kind of like wandering drunk that the cops just happen to bring in, and so just even the way that he's brought in, you're like, well, what is the connection? Why do you suddenly think that he's the guy? It almost seems like so easy, you know, but then it's like, well, you got mud on you and you've got this these scratches on your head, and they it's like, while we're watching this, we're not getting the blow by blow, and I don't even know if they do ask like where'd you get the scratches from?

Why do you have mud on yourself? And he also never says why did you bring me in? Like he doesn't sit there and just say like I'm indostan or I want my solicitor or any of that stuff. Like I finally he will ask for a solicitor, but it goes on for a long time before he ever brings that up. And he just is so like, you know, the way they bring him into the police station, he's like practically comatose, the way that he's brought in, and just it's like then suddenly gets thrust into this scenario where you've got all these cops ask him stuff.

And then the way that Connery just tells the one remaining guard to take a hike and has this private session with him. This is every bad cop we've seen in every movie ever. So I'm curious, what is where do y'all come into the Ian Bannon character? Is he? I know, like, it's is he or isn't he?

Is Is he acting like he's guilty in the movie? That's the question, because whether he's guilty or not, the movie never gives us a straight answer. Intentionally, I feel like he's acting guilty and he's baiting Connory into doing what he does. Maybe he doesn't think Connery will take it to the extent that he does, and you know his death will become part of it. But someone who could be doing what his character would be doing would know that baiting someone like a Connery type into beating the shit out of him would get him out of anything he did.

And he's I mean, I like that he's given a shade of grain, but he is acting rather guilty. I mean, he talks about that guy in school and he's like, oh, you're having me now, han, It's like yeah, dude, Like yeah, he's got your ass right where he wants. You just don't realize it. Mm hmmm. Yeah, that story, and you don't see that the first time.

The way that we get reveals of him, you know, we see just like a very tiny bit of him at the very beginning, but then like the you know, initial questioning, we get some but then we go away, you know, and then we come back and he's already on the ground kind of thing, you know, like lean in his head against that chair. And then to go back to that later on in the movie, I think is brilliant. And again I imagine if I was watching the play of this, we only probably see him the one time. We probably get him at the end, I don't. I think that the play is written in the same out of sequence style where it's the wife, it's the the inspector who's checking out Connery's story post incident, and then it's the incident.

But having this introduction of him early on, I think is really smart, and then showing us the crime that Connery commits a few times really kind of casts it in a new light every single time. Yeah, it's interesting. I think part of the ambiguity Chris for me, gets caught up in Yes, he behaves like he's guilty, but is he guilty? Is he feeling guilty about something else, right, you know that you know exactly what is he feeling guilty about? Is it?

Is it this crime or is it you know, obviously the other stuff that comes out about his past and how it comes out with Connery. You know, this is uh, this is really really interesting. I mean I think I think ultimately I come down on the side of yeah, it seems like maybe he's baiting Connory into killing him because he is guilty of this crime and he knows what he can. He spots, He spots is double. You know, he spots that that Connery is is like like himself, and that if he can just draw this out, uh, you know, he'll he'll die.

But because we never know, that's you know, this is this is like when I actually feel like everybody should have to watch a movie like this because we're getting we're getting all these like we live in a world now of conspiracy theories over whether somebody acted emotionally in the right way after some totally traumatic event happened to them. And I feel like this kind of this kind of drama where you really are outside and you you just got some cues about somebody's behavior. What kind of guilt. What is the guilt really about? Uh?

I I really, I really feel like we then I don't know, you know, I'm hoping too much for the conspiracy theorists. Uh but but I I this just does remind me of how we live in this world of thinking, oh, yeah, we know the inside of this person because of how they behaved immediately after some traumatic event, and then we're gonna invent all kinds of stories about it. And you know, Lumette and Connery really and and Ian Bannon really put us through. Uh you know, how how do we gain access uh to someone's subjectivity? And with Connery, of course, you know, we get these flashes of what's in his mind.

He you know, he's the most revealed out of anybody. And I got to say that car ride in the middle of the movie going to all the different images of cases that he's been on in the past, and we don't know that yet. Like I was, I was wondering, is this a is this cross cutting to like the next stage in this particular case. And then I start to figure out, no, this is this is like a bunch of memories that he's going with. That stuff was like, you know, without being super gory or anything genuinely shocking, like, you know, really really intense, and you know, I was, I was definitely at the edge of my seat, kind of sickened by these images that are coming into his head in the middle of the movie.

And then of course those images are this is where again you know, the the cinema of this as an adaptation into a play. Yeah, then later we talk about some of these images. We described the cases where he got there, but having seen these flashes before, oh my god, Like both parts of that are just like really really intense, and yeah, wondering really really wondering about at that where Connery is going to go, How how is this going to happen? He is a you know, really dangerous and also somebody we can I feel like on some level pity at the at the same time, pity does not let him remotely off the hook. We can have both of these things at the same time.

But it really it really does make a case for the damage done just to somebody. And that's that's where again, this is a totally different deal from some of our other like seventies Bad and Questionable Cops. We really really go into the cops trauma that is motivating this behavior, and what it does is not let the cop off the hook, but kind of indict a system that cannot you know, that cannot control. Violent I if you or I had the image flash repeatedly of a chicken being beheaded in your brain, over and over again, I was honestly waiting. It very much reminded me of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where it's all those like the cutting away.

I was like, oh my god, I'm waiting for the chicken to be beheaded, and then you know as they're as they're going through the tunnel. No, it's a right, It's It's one of those things where like movies that talk about police officers a specific kind of police officer, do these kinds of like when you get too close to the case, you become involved in the case. Like I know Zodiac tried to traffic in that a little bit, which is why I enjoy that movie so much. I don't think it does it as much as this movie does. I think Zodiac does it more in terms of Robert Graysmith's character less the character that Mark Ruffalo plays.

But I like the idea of what happens when this cop gets too close because he has to be so close because that's his job. And also again juxtapposing it with someone who you kind of always see as the good character because it's Sean Connery. But then, like you said, Spencer, you have this guy who's like huge and with a level of toxic masculinity and unbridled rage, and that combination together is horrifying. And he literally kills someone and just and attempts to justify it about halfway through the movie too, which is the wild part. You know.

Oh man, this, I mean, we haven't talked about that scene with Trevor Howard yet and that's also remarkable, you know, just just amazing work between those two actors. Yeah, and again Trevor Howard, this guy's no slouch, and here's comedy just giving it his all, and it's he makes it look effortless, which is wonderful. You know. I don't feel like this is some sort of you know, grab a look at me. I'm a serious actor, like he Yeah, I'm taking this guy bloody serious through this whole thing.

And yeah, this I just love all the machinations of the actual police department and everything, and I love the color palette, or should I say lack of color palette. Everything looks so. Sickly and like it's it's not really a greenish tint, it's more of like a light blue tint that everything has from like these neon lights, and just oh, it looks so dire. And after you know, he kills their sends this suspect to the hospital, like you know, it's raining outside, it's just so drab, and even just the countryside where you see the little girl being you know, taken away and everything. And I love that you have the witness who's too far away to see anything and who waits too long to come to the police and say stuff, and.

He is just pissed. He's just a boiling font of rage throughout all of this movie. And you just sense that boiling tension. And back to the whole thing and the flashing images. I mean, we are being told so little with just a few frames of things like that the rib with the hand coming out, Oh god, and you're just like, I don't want to know.

I do not want to know what the scene was when you walked in here. This is bad and like you see the person falling off the top of the building, and I'm like, was that a fall? Was a push? Who is this? What's going on here?

You see certain images where You're like, I don't even know what this thing is, but it's very effective. Like it almost looks like there's a door open and some water dripping, and I'm like, I don't know what that is, but it builds the mood and just the repetition of things, the use of the train that goes through that montage as well, minimalist filmmaking for maximum effort. Yeah, well, and so yeah, you bring up the color and this comes from the you know, the predominant spaces are brutalist architecture. Yes, and in a way this is then brutalist filmmaking. Agree, not simply because like the architecture is there and creates all these intense lines, but also the way that the like the way that the movie is covered and cut becomes these like blocks of things put together you know, in a in a similar in a similar kind of fashion, and following such intense lines.

You know, Like so for instance, the apartment that that he shares with his wife could look totally different, but that set is designed to even though it's not literally a brutalist space to imitate those hard lines that we get in the police station, you know, the lines of the hallways, the lines of windows that people are looking through, and and yes, there's there's this intense kind of brutalism. You also mentioned the the fluorescent lights. There's something evil about the hallways in the police station, like people always seem to be as they're moving through the hallways, they are in distress or feel dread. You get people running too and running away from things, and so it's like you've got this fluorescent lit kind of hallway that seems to contain violent that, you know, or if it's not containing the violence, it's spitting it out into one of these rooms.

And yeah, just throughout the movie, we get we get these, yeah, these really intense lines. There's that beautiful and horrific shot in that sequence of of uh of flashes where we've been seeing the train and the train is then going you know, it's it's still going along, but it's not just a shot of a train. Now there seems to be a group of people, you know, extracting a dead body from uh, you know, the side of the train tracks and bringing it down to an ambulance at the road below. Yeah, the movie is just full of this, this kind of very angular Uh and you know, brutal Uh, you know, brutal, brutal lines, brutal movements. Uh and uh, you know, ultimately a brutal storytelling.

I don't know that the story itself would quite count as brutalist, but the way that people move through this and how how the movie cuts, how the camera moved, feels very much in tune with this architecture. And I think the architecture becomes really important to seeing not just Connery as one bad and damaged cop, but getting a sense of a system that is, you know, rigidly holding everybody in and producing horrifying results. I think at that beautiful shot of those yellow flowers, only for the camera to tilt up and show us the desiccated body hanging in the forest. Right, Oh Jesus Christ. Did it rehind anybody else?

I don't look now, because it is a little bit of that as well. Like the imagery that's being used here. It's I would say it's being used a similar effect in both films. I mean it's being used to kind of jolt the audience and get them to kind of I don't know, be disturbed or in this film's case, be put in the mindset of this character. I do like how most of the scene with Trevor Howard is just him projecting, and a lot of the movie is projecting, like, don't you know in his mind he was just thinking about this girl in the mud, And it's like, Bro, that was you.

That was you that was thinking about Like it's not him, it's you. You're the one who's condemning yourself. You just don't realize it. And it's like, at the moment he's put in front of anybody who can psychoanalyze him, they're gonna do the exact same fucking thing. This guy is toast.

That's the thing that he realizes, and that he's attempting so hard to like course correct as he's trying to validate it. But he I think the movie, as we watch it, as it slowly goes on, he realizes more and more just how completely fucked he is and how completely in line with the person he was condemning he is as well. And maybe he's condemning someone unfairly and he's more just looking for a reason to externalize his own self loathing and self condemnation. Yeah, you're talking about the apartment space and those great glass windows that they have that distorts anything that's behind it, you know, or the lights in there just feel like they're never touching the darkness of the room. That just feels so dim and dirty in there, and so cluttered with like knickknacks.

You like, look at her kitchen and she's got all of these pots and pants every fucking place, and it just feels like a fucking disaster area. And then I love that that sequence inside of that area where the cops come to pick him up to take him back to the office and he's you know, they have to be there with him while he's shaving because he might slit his throat. They have to be there with him when he's burning on his shirt. I love seeing John Halliman this. It's like I grew up on Dragon Slayer and Flash Gordon is like he was such a stock face in these British movies from that period of time, and here he's seven years younger than he was in Flash Gordon, but he always looks like an old man, you know, like just always buried and everything, I mean, even the windows to outside of their apartment.

You can't see anything. I don't know if it's because of the rain, but like there's no view outside of this this place. It just feels like grime, absolute grime. It's very seven adjacent. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, well, you know.

Absolutely yeah. When you see the guy coming off of the roof, like when you watch it the second time, it's like, oh, there's people pushing this guy off, and it looks like one of them's wearing a Bobby hat. So maybe that was Connery's first time doing this. We don't know, Yeah, don't know, no, And it's interesting. Yeah.

I was thinking of seven earlier because obviously seven is more gothic and kind of florid in its you know, crime scene imagery than these flashes are. But these flashes were actually more upsetting to me than anything in seven. You know, Seven definitely has some grotesque kind of kind of moments, but in terms of just pure upset, uh, you know, uh, Sidney Lumette wins, uh. You know, I'm a big fan of David Fincher, but this is this is like one of those things where I just go, oh, wow, we are we're in a We're just at a different level of darkness like to be you know, to be fair. You know, Seven a fine film and really well made, but this is this is like high school darkness.

Uh, very formative dark It's performative darkness. Wouldn't to be creepy if a guy was in a room with allD I mean yeah, it would be. But you know what could actually happen to you? A cop fucking murdering. Like I don't know else to put it, but like in this day and age, in this economy, folks, I'd gladly let a police officer fucking murder me over having you know, David Fincher's whatever, seven.

Like what happens in this movie is awful, like really genuinely awful, like just being beaten to death by another human being, Like just beaten to death. We go to a darker place and in part because you know, it doesn't take Ahead in a box to get at Connery to kill another human being. Yeah, you know, it's yeah, man, I mean again, I'm just I'm just gobsmacked that this was like that. I haven't been hearing that this is a great film for years because this is like, this is this feels like especially especially as like a film school centophile. This feels like one of those movies, you know, like Charlie Verrick or something that, you know, a crime movie that has passed along, like you know, part of the special Secrets of cinephiles.

That's like a little bit deeper cut, but feels like it should be at least at the Charlie Verick level. And it's not. It's it's not talked about it, but I hope we can get people talking about it, because it's like, this is this is a really incredible film, and I'm glad that it's you know, it's gonna be interrupted by uh, you know, commercials for all kinds of drugs with a million different bad indications, but it is on to be and people should watch it. It's a real thing, beauty, this film and real horrors. You mentioned the police station.

One thing I picked up on when I was watching the second time was because we get that scene in the hallway where they discover that Connery is beating the guy to death, and you see that scene play out a few times, and it took me until the second viewing to see the ladder that was in the hallway, and I'm like, why, how is this ladder here? And then when you get to the Trevor Howard part, you see like the wall is ripped away, there's a toilet sitting right behind Connery. This wall is sure, there's a ladder over here, this ladder. It's like they are read either rebuilding or re renovating this whole place. So it's that whole like this place is unfinished, it is unsettled.

We are put into just the place itself is a place that is not complete, you know. And like again to your point about the brutalist stuff, like those metal shutters that seem to be like on the wall on the opposite side from that ladder, Like it's just like what is going on? And like just that the guy can hear the screams from inside of there. There are no windows, there's no one way mirror here. You know.

You're just like you have to trust that whatever's going on in there is okay. And yeah, people probably beat people all the time at police stations, but this one is bad enough that he goes and gets help. Holy shit, it must be really bad. You guys. Ever noticed how if you take drywall off of walls, that studs look like jail cell bars.

Yeah, studded up walls just look like jail cell bars, especially that scene with Connery and Trevor Howard where he's sitting there in that chair behind him. It's just the walls that have been built out with just this, you know, the two by fours just casually looks like a jail cell just actually looks like a jail wall. Like it's. One of my favorite movies is Glenngary Glenn Ross, which I mean is a glorified adaptation fucking play like it it. I would say it effectively adds nothing new to an otherwise perfect stage play like it's.

It is a It is a except for. The brass balls the ball right, and that's and that's so good to the play. Right. Other than that, the movie is not going out of its way to do anything. It is a straight up retelling of a play.

And I love when a film does that. This does more than Glengarry Glen Ross does in so many ways, but I think it touches on that same idea of like less ultimately is more. When the writing is this good and the acting is this good, you don't have to like judge it up with a bunch of bullshit. You can just let the movement and the action, and the actors command the scene because they do. Connery and Trevor Howard in that scene are amazing.

Connery and Ian Bannon in their scene together are amazing, Like they don't. You don't need anything else. That's why it's a stage play and that's why it stood alone as a stage play before this ever came out. Like when the writing is good, you can literally just have two p talking and the said dressing falls away. It's interesting for me too, the way, you know, you're talking about the whole performative thing, and you know, is this person guilty?

And we're looking for this. We're looking for that because of us looking us being the observers of this whole story, us being this audience, We are looking for all those little micro things, you know, like oh, did you notice how he reacted when Conory brought up his kids? You know, did you notice how Connery reacted when this happened? You know? And just see like we are there constantly trying to figure this out, like we are kept off guard the entire time.

That the nonlinear structure is helping with that, the flashbacks are helping with that. The recasting of Connery as the rapist is helping with that. It's amazing that we are just constantly being kept off our feet. There's no point in this movie where you feel comfortable, me be in the first twenty minutes when it's kind of a police procedural, but even then it starts like these kind of things. Yeah, so completely jarring.

Yeah, it's like, by the way, is this person? Who are these guys? Okay, I guess they're cops. What's going on? Oh?

I guess there were two this abductions before. What happened to those girls? We don't know? Like constantly and they like are purposefully omitting things to keep us just on tenter hooks. Like, at no point does the offender potential, you know, rapists say, well, listen, I was just out having a pint at the bar and I fell in some mud and I did, Like, we don't get that stuff.

We are kept so off balance. I find the part of the film that's the most disturbing to be anytime we cut away to Connery with the little girl. Oh yeah, what it's awful. It's awful. It's the worst part of this movie because it I mean again, it speaks to like you just mentioned Mike.

We we don't know in this room of two human beings, which of them is the shark and which one isn't and they both they might both be the shark. You know. I don't know if you've ever played the board game were Wolf, but if you play it with enough people, there are two were wolves in that crowd sometimes. And that's my read of this situation. You know, I know everybody likes to go, oh the thing, you know, what happened at the end of the thing?

Who's the thing at the end of the thing. What if they're both the fucking thing? And that's this? That's this right here, Like this scene is less a good cop and a bad guy. It's two bad people.

Just we don't know which shade of bad each one of them is. But they're both very pet But the issue is, we don't know in any other film, you wouldn't know that about Connery without being given all that backstory and given those flashbacks and those those flashes into his mind, because otherwise he seems like a justified cop until you see the internal monologue that he's having with himself constantly. I mean again, you know, Trevor Howard even says it like a case like this, we understand, but then Connery starts outing himself. It's like your mouse, dude, like stop cockey, stop saying these things. And it's yeah, it's that makes this so much better than any other kind of thing like this I've seen before.

That crazy bitch in the suv, it was going to run me over, so I had to shoot her in the fucking face, right, yeah, Okay, well you know what, We'll just move you over to another department and you'll be absolutely fine. It's it's like the Catholic Priests cut. Yeah, oh yeah, well that guy was definitely pulling out his gun and and had fired shots at us. I'm sure of it. So yeah, and it's so oh god, it's just fascinating to me.

Like I think the if you were to recut this as a linear story, I think the last thing we see of him is like after Trevor Howard is done with them. But when you put it in the context of how this movie actually is cut, I think it's like an hour and a half out of a close to two hour movie is basically the end of the film, you know, and then we go back and now we see the titular offense as a word. You know, which is the offense? Is that the thing against a little girl or is it the thing that happens with this potential suspect? You know, like which is it?

And then going back into that, you know, half an hour before this movie ends, and basically, yeah, it's half an hour of these two guys just going at it. Holy fuck. Is that amazing? And I like that the movie spends ample time building that up and leaving us in the dark, and then when we get to it, it's like, oh, okay, that's what this is. Like Connery outs himself to this guy as a man with murderous and rapist fantasies, and then again, you could this is another way to read it.

He has to kill him, he has no choice. The guy rebuffs him, and he goes, you know what time to die? Uh? And you know what you could you know, I know, we could say what this is, you know, we we could look at this as a lot of things, transpose this onto a lot of situations where emotional vulnerability is given in one direction and it's received, and then you give it back in the other direction and the person rebuffs you. I mean, we've seen that in film before with other kinds of situations.

Normally, it's a queer thing where it's like I'm gay. I don't know, I'm not gay, but I accept that you're gay. Like that normally is more kind of the usual situation with characters being rebuff But I like how there is this kind of weird undertone here of share with me. I'll show you yours if you show you mine, And then when he shows him his, he's like, oh, just fuck you, like never mind, deal with it yourself like, and it's like, oh, yeah, okay, Like I guess my only choice now was to just fucking kill you. The way he grabs on you know, I was talking about those hands and you've got that amazing shot with Trevor Howard where he says like, yo, in these hands, and you like get that shot of the hands in front of Howard's face, remember, yeah, and you cut back to Connory and his hands are up like that and then all of the stuff that's going on.

You know, I talked about how he grabs the guy by that, you know, with those massive hands, but then he like holds onto his hands and just squeezing that guy's hands so tight. He's just like, oh, you know, like you have to stop kind of thing, basically crushes his hands. He even uses his hands on his wife and it's like grabbing onto her face and stuff, and just like he's so oh physical and just such a brute in this movie. Well, and there's there's a rhyme in terms of imagery in the scene with his wife where it looks like things are about to get rapie, you know, where where he's over on top of her and he you know, pushes her legs apart and one of his legs goes. He does not rape her in the scene, but that's what the imagery is.

And then when he throws Ian Bannon down onto the table, we get very similar compositions that then feel like he's going to rape Ian Bannon, right he grabs him from behind, He literally has him from behind, and it's just a faguely homo erotic fashion. Yeah. And then and then there's also rhyme with the way that he has to hold the girl down on the ground and the way that he gets placed in the sort of pedophile position and in his own mind and these flashes. So it's there's a very consistent, very dark, you know through line for uh, for Connory Conrie's character that is is created here and his his performance matches the cinematics that that Lumette is is throwing his way. Oh god, and I forgot that.

They cut back to him one last time at the end where he's just talking to himself. There's like the coy like he's now in the hot seat and there's a cop over there, and he's just like he wanted me to do this, you know, he had he wanted me. And I'm like, oh man, you were just talking yourself into this, Like yeah, well I am completely justified. Like he is one off the reservation at the end of this movie. And what a stark fucking end of this.

Like when the credits started rolling, I was like, oh my god, I feel like I've just been gutted like a fish. It reminded me a lot of The Hill, The Hill, And in the same way, we get Connery, you know, steering into and in this it's like, oh god, my god, like what the fuck with a Lumette really loved ending films on a shot of Connery just acting bewildered. Yeah, it isn't another thing. It's like, you know, I I really love Sidney Lumette. But this is a this is a film that makes me want to go back to some of his other work to just like clock how fucking dark he can go that.

That's not precisely his reputation. No, Lumette's reputation is yes, uh, you know, certainly a kind of hard boiled professional, uh who really delivers great cinematic storytelling, but in a lot of circles, is not even you know, sort of treated as an oteur, but more of a journeyman director who takes on lots of different stuff. And I gotta say this, this reminded me, well, this is farther out there, but it reminded me of when I saw When the Devil Knows You're Dead, which I was not. I was not adequately prepared for how nasty that film was gonna be. And this is this is nastier and darker still uh and uh it uh yeah, it makes me uh, it makes me really want to reevaluate some of Lumet's work for like what a tough, nasty son of a bitch he can be as a director, really admirable, really great, really really great stuff.

I mean again, thinking of I'm a big fan of Fincher. And you know, we mentioned Zodiac earlier. For instance, I absolutely love Zodiac, but but I gotta say, you know, well, like and Lumetsen is definitely an influence on Zodiac. But I gotta say this is this is this is really going to a darker, tougher place, you know, a much more adult Are you ready for this kind of place? Well?

And I think it helps that this is not based on a real thing. I mean, it's inspired by based on real events where cops actually do this and for what reason? You know, they could say, but we may will never know, you know, Fincher in Zodiac is bound by the reality of the case. I like that this is not based on any one thing that we do kind of have the ability to. Like you said, Spencer, push it as far as we can go.

With him murdering this guy in cold blood with his bare hands, not I mean literally not even shooting him, like to point out, this is the most brutal way to die as far as I'm concerned. Is this that being beaten to death by this like six foot plus Scottish man and having him crush his hands, your head in his hands, like Jesus Christ. No, thank you. I never saw before The Devil Knows Your Dad, and I really want to now. For whatever reason, I was mixing it up with I can't remember the the Mike Agitas film that had a similar title, maybe as I'll Sleep when I'm Dead or something, which is also really fucking brutal.

And I don't know why I was mixing those two films up in my brain, but yeah, now I'm like, okay, yeah, fucking phillipsy Moore Hoffman, Ethan hawk. Right is in that, I think. And Albert Fiddley, I'm like, oh god, you can't really get much better than that. And yeah, to have Sidney la Mette directing that too, okay, yeah, yeah, it is weird when you think of like, oh yeah, and he also did The Whiz and it's like what wait what. Yeah, but you know, like I'm teaching a horror class right now, and I pulled sequences from The Wiz.

I mean, the Wiz is is notorious, like that scene in the subway is horrific. So and and Lumette didn't even really love doing that film. Uh, and there's there's just there is. I I love Wiz. There's amazing stuff in it.

It's a bonkers film. I saw a lot of times when I was growing up, So yeah. But the scares in The Wiz are really intense. Uh, They're like the scares yeah technically are PG rated, but they are nightmare fuel for a child, and like have always been scary to me. And when you know, my nephews and I were watching it, they were definitely they were definitely horrified at particular points in that movie.

I mean, Charlie and the Choco Factory is a Willy Wonk and The Chalk Factor is a notorious for kids. It's a PG movie. Yeah, yeah, fucked Up That Returned to Oz is a PG movie. And it's also. That's another one I showed in my class, like did a whole day about like the traumas of Wizard of Oz adaptations.

Because it's no joke. PG is not created equal, as they would say, like nog ratings are not created equal. No, I mean, you know, Jaws was PG. That scared the but Jesus out of me. He scared the begs out of millions of people.

And it's a PG movie, you know, but that had shot of the head coming out of the boat still makes me jump. Holdergeist is PG, and that's scarier than a whole pile of like hard hor horror films. Yeah, there's a lot of these lament films where I'm well, obviously I'm familiar with some of the bigger ones, you know, Like, this is making me want to go back and rewatch Surpuco or give it another chance, because I was not a fan the first time I saw it. This is making me want to, you know, track down. You know, obviously I'm a fan of Dog Day Afternoon and stuff.

I remember Equis fucking me up when I was a kid. Oh god, but I've never seen Prince of the City, which is one of those that people do definitely talk about. I'm like, oh right, yeah, I guess I should probably finally see this, or now that I'm older than ten years old, maybe now I'll understand the verdict. If I watch it. Because that was the first time I saw it, was what I was because I was ten when I saw that.

I was probably nine or eight whenever Eques was showing on cable. So yeah, that was way too Yes, yes, oh wow, boy. Meets horse Boy, falls in love with horse Boy, kills horase. Yes, ooh yeah, yeah, no, Lamette's you know, really really fascinating figure. You know, I'm not going to argue over a tour.

I don't. I ultimately don't care too much about that. But there is a darker embrace and a darker personality that he brings to the work that I think is not darkness for its own sake. I mean, I actually don't even want to say dark at this point in our history. That's that's like one of those terms for cinema that has come to have such a degraded sort of meaning.

But this, this is the This is the real This is the real deal. This is uh, you know, people on screen dealing with the shadow, you know, this is It's no it's no joke and uh yeah really so so well executed, so mysterious. It's ultimately unsettling, not simply because it takes us to uh, you know, into a kind of hellish place and a hellish mind. Uh, but but ultimately that it there's it isn't simply ambiguous. It leaves us in essential mystery about about these characters.

The ambiguity is like this, that's like the tip of the iceberg that's above the surface. Is the ambiguity of whether the suspect really did it or not? You know what is what in the hearts of these these two men, and of Trevor Howard and the other police who you know, we see and this comes up as a thing right out of the gate. I mean, it's the movie's only sort of funny moment. I generally generally don't go in for movies that don't have much comedy to them, but this really does it.

This is this is like, there's very little that's funny, But the funniest moment in it is when they go to the pub and of course, you know, in a very morbid turn, they've gone to the pub because they think that the the pedophile is not on the prowl, and they find out nope, they shouldn't have gone to the pub. They should have been watching those kids, and you know, the guy has nabbed another victim, the closest thing to a joke in the entire movie, And Connery's reaction in that moment is like he absolutely knew that this was what's gonna happen. And that's part of that's part of the darkness that drives him, is knowing the you know, the worst possible thing is going to happen, being sure of that worst possible thing because he's inside.

It, he's living it. It's part of his existence. What a movie? What a movie? And yeah, definitely not a feel good film.

Don't go into this feel good. No no, don't don't look for this on a Sunday afternoon if you're just like, yeah, let's chill out and watch a movie. Hn. Yeah, I feel good talking about it with you guys, though, this is a great movie to chew over. So it's like, you know, they should, they should probably, you know, we got Bleak Week coming up here again in Chicago.

This strikes me as a major contender for inclusion in Bleak Week because it's the kind of very bleak, difficult, nasty film that you should see in a theater and then chew over with your friends that you went with afterwards. It's, you know, a great intense, difficult conversation starter. And I think in this in this day and age, holy shit, I mean this, this is a rather we we I mean, Mike, you made allusions to it, but it is also a pretty pressioned film as well. Obvious you know, cops being up to no good is not just a thing in the films, folks, it's also a thing in the real life, which I mean again like happens all the time in real life. Like sadly it happens all the time in real life.

But I do think that this film also is rather topical and could use some reappraisal, especially by those in positions to move the needle more than you or I, though we can still move the needle in our own respective way. I think this is a movie that actually has a rather large place in a conversation that needs to be had right now, which is, you know, responsibility in policing and response and and and one's own responsibility when it comes to cause. You know. Ultimately, by the end of the movie, Ian Bannon says it to Sean Connery, and it's the truth, like help your fucking self. It was Sean conneries it was his job to handle his own problems, and he did not.

He chose not to intentionally. And we live in a society now where people have no accountability for their actions whatsoever we lack in it. We live in a lack of accountability society. I know. People like to say we live in cancel culture.

Well fucking universe does anyone who's ever been canceled, actually ever stay canceled. For fuck's sake, Lewis c K is back. Everybody's back, even people that were branded as self branded as Nazis are back. Like, I don't want to hear about fucking cancel culture. It's a lack of accountability.

And that's what this movie ultimately preaches, is like, we should be practicing self accountability because if we don't, we get to a point where a cop murders a guy in custody and can somehow justify it to himself. Even without the interior dialogue, he could still justify it to himself. Even if we didn't know his interior monologue, he still is externally justifying it, attempting to any Well. It's interesting too because like it doesn't it doesn't really deal with the view from outside of the police. The police are centered here.

They're the ones that we're watching. But as you talk about accountability, Chris, I do think that it it gives us enough of a sense of a system that while we are definitely seeing bad cops and we are seeing a system of police work that is not good for them and for other people, that uh, there there is also I think a certain questioning of what is what is the responsibility for creating law enforcement? Uh? You know what, what is what is our responsibility toward what uh you know what people have to go through, uh in order in order to do this job. And that doesn't excuse anybody, And it doesn't make citizens more guilty than the cops.

That's not what I'm suggesting, but there, but it is suggestive enough of reciprocal relationships. And one of the scenes that I think of, and it's early on in the film that doesn't fully suggest this, but Connery is kind of asking the question when the woman who saw the little girl follow you know, the you know, the the pedophile away, you know, this woman who sees this incident at the beginning, she's being questioned about it because she has come forward, but she's come forward really late and potentially you know, too late to save the child. And and and you know, Connery attacks her for this, and of course, on one level, no, she's done the right thing. But just doing the right thing, even a moment late, I don't blame her more than then then just you know, thinking twice three times whatever before she's shown up at the police station.

But this is. This is like a really really interesting push and pull that goes on in this film. Uh and yeah, the the sort of again, the corruption of that system is not as simple as one guy. It's not as simple as the cops. It is it is a whole it's it's a whole community of humanity that we're bound up in.

The whole systems out of order, the whole systems out of order. I know that's not Lamette, but but it is. I mean, it's unfortunately, it is the truth. Unfortunately. Oh yeah.

Yeah. And the film I think leans into it in a way that doesn't feel preachy. It just feels part of the story. And yeah, yeah, that's a good thing. It's not that I have a problem with the preachy film, it's just they can do better when they did.

Yeah, well, I think this has you know, all tragedy has a preachy dimension. And I really do think that this is This is very much a kind of modern tragedy. And tragedy isn't only about the quote unquote hero dying. You know, Oedipus Rex, he doesn't die, he just tears his eyes out. But Connery here is a kind of tragic hero driven to his own destruction, and you know, tragedy is a mode for dealing with the forces that are much greater than any of the characters, or even the characters collectively.

What a great film, Mike, Geez, Louise, what a pick? Yeah, you picked a great one. Well, thank you. Yeah, and just kind of luck of the draw, you know, just one of those yet It's been on my watch list forever and really need to do this, So that's kind of how this month came together. Was Well, I sure there's a lot of Sean Connery films, like there's one The Five Days in August that I've been wanting to watch forever too, but I was just like, eh, I'm not putting that on the list.

I'll put these others on here. And I'm glad that it's worked out so far. So fingers crossed for the next one. Mike, you just wanted to see a child molester get murdered, that's what. Yeah, it was, well, yeah, yeah, it's nice if pedophiles actually have to pay some consequences.

So if that guy was a pedophile, he got he deserved. Oh man, waiting for a hot take, Spencer, I think Mike just had the hottest take all that is. That's pretty hot. That's pretty hot. No, my hot take is not that hot.

Uh, it's just you know, my my favorite my favorite Bond uh is is Thunderball U out of all not just I know people don't like Thunderball, and I'm like, no, it got lots of underwater and sharks and uh sharks in pools and all it just it. Uh. Yeah, I I enjoy it's trashy, and I enjoy Bond in a trashy mode. But but Diamonds Are Forever. On the other hand, that movie stinks.

That is not a good Bond movie. But I'll take it because it was the necessary price to get the offense. So all is forgiven, diamonds are Forever. I won't watch again, but all is forgiven, Diamonds Are Forever. Is totally worth it because it got the offence made.

Yeah, I agree with that. But yeah, Thunderball is not great, man, I don't Yeah, you don't like that, your choice of that, that's fucked. Yeah. Yeah, my dad, my dad's probably he was he was right, he was a he was a from Russia with love guy. And I do really like that one.

But Thunderball has my heart. I just I love. I love the ridiculousness of it all. What was the one that Richard liked on our show, Mike Octopussy was that his? That was his?

I mean mine was a view to a kill someone. It's pretty bad. I mean, I don't think we've made anything that's of you to a kill so you oh wow that I know. I know. I got no room as a Bond villain though, I mean walking as a Bond villain very strong.

And the Duran Duran theme uh, one of the best Bond themes. True, now a great song, great song. But diamond Sire Forever is kind of a retread of gold Finger as far as the theme song goes. Yeah yeah, yeah yeah. Isn't it even Shirley Bassey doing that same yeah yeah, diamonds off.

Ah, that's right right, over and over and over again. But I also like Never Say Never Again, which is which is basically a remake of Thunderball, that one. I like to because affect him a blush. So yeah, I'm right there with you on that one. Nope, nope, no, man, it's like giving me PTSD flashbacks.

I'm like sitting here like Sean Connor in the offense, just like I see his face playing Battleship Laser Tag game on the computer, Like, yeah. We went from the sublime to the ridiculous, and that's good. I should not even bring up as much as I enjoy Thunderball, I should not even bring it up in the same conversation as the offense. Wow, it doesn't seem like the same actor, but it is, so it is. It's the same actor.

Man, he's so good. And there's another thing too. She ate here too is for all like, boy, oh boy, do we get a whole lot of talk once uh, once people start talking, we get these like big long monologue dialogue scenes with them. But the first big chunk of the movie, man, I just love seeing like Connery walking from one place to another, and Connery looking and Connery observing and Connory listening. Incredible, the man just like walks and listens so well.

It's like thrilling, uh you know. And and actually I think sets the stage really well for when he does start to talk, all this all this stuff that's been stored up as he's just been silent in the first big chunk of the movie comes spewing out. You know, he's uh, he's being shaken uh and and uh, eventually he's he's gonna vomit it all out, and it's it's that's also like a really beautiful and I think again, very cinematic way of telling a story, or arrive at the talk when the talk becomes absolutely necessary for the characters, and not a moment before, because at first I was like, man, this is laconic it We're really not getting a lot of dialogue, and I was down. I was like, this is this is like Lumet kind of inspiring Michael Mann or somebody you know.

Uh, And then then it takes this turn into the real intense, you know, stage dramatic kind of dialogue, and I'm so here for it. It adds both of those things work together and uh, all all that all that visual, more silent kind of acting, uh pays off so well. Uh when uh yeah, when. He just volcanically erupts and and I love that we get to see that side of Connery, even if it's just for a moment, because again we saw it in Bond so much with that like that brutal the brutalism that he would bring to it. But then you know, he can kill a man and make love to a woman in the same scene, and not all bonds can get away with that.

Connery, I guess he's he's like one of the few, and it's believable. And this is the same thing here where by the end of the movie I can see why he's like an uncaged animal and he goes after the cops and then he is able to restrain himself finally, because only he is able to restrain himself because of just the level of emotion that he's operating at. But like you said, Spencer, like he is, he has to get to that eleven, and when he gets to that eleven, it's, you know, a one bad day. You know what happens on the one bad day? This is his you know, it took twenty out of the poster for it says like after twenty years, Sergeant Johnson's you know, he's had enough, and it's like, yeah, you know, anybody in that room with him, Kenneth, you know Ian Bannon's Kenneth Baxter or not, probably would have had a hard time being talked out of not being murdered by Sean Connery.

Honestly, well, this is also you mentioned that this is a really I hadn't looked at the poster. But this is a really sly, maybe even unintentional way to sell this movie, because that kind of it took twenty years for this cop. You you kind of then expect that this is gonna be more of a redemptive, violent, dirty, hairy kind of thing if that's what's being sold, twenty years of anger. You know, the angry cop is like, you know, finally he's gonna get him some justice. And that is not what this movie delivers, though.

It is about the twenty years of anger that you can feel in that performance. Well, and of course this movie did not do well at the box office. People were not clamoring to go see this one. I mean, the critics knew what was going on, but yeah, this was not nobody's coming in. Like I said, you know, oh it's amazing.

It is seventy three. Yeah, exactly when we are primed and ready for the most dire, desperate stories that we've ever seen on screen. You know, when when a happy little, go lucky thing of two friends travel across the country as fucking scarecrow, you know, like nothing is good, you know, like, yeah, I mean people wonder why Star Wars and Jaws were such big hits. It's like, have you seen what other people are watching? Yes, of course they were escape ast things, and you know, all throughout the setup the cinema history.

But I mean we were pumping out some great. Dire, dire films. So yeah, and this is one of the most. Like I said, man, when those credits roll, when we cut back to that that police uh interrogation one last time and he's just knocked out three of his fellow officers after killing the suspect and you get that that light superimposed again and we go to credits and I'm just like jaw is on the floor. Yeah, man, Yes, Rarely do films go for it the way this film and source material goes for it.

I would love to have seen the seven the eighty seven revival with David Suchet on stage as the Sergeant Johnson character, right, Souchet? Can you imagine him bringing it. As a not as a Middle Eastern man? Thankfully? God, yes, Christ's I think up with David Soouche is POI row and then as a Middle Eastern man, which the very wide margin of things.

Unfortunately, such a good actor, though I can only imagine what his turn as sergeant Johnson would have would have looked like and again someone who is like kind of seen a certain way because of a certain thing. Yeah. Well, it's funny because the met did one of the Poirot films of the seventies. That was when Albert Finney was playing far Row for Murder under the Sun, not Murder under the Sun, sorry, Murder on the Express. I was going to say, isn't that yet another Connery.

Is another lutte? Yeah? Yeah, it is another lumette. Yeah yeah. And Connery's is Connory in that?

Is that as well? I want to say the dead body he plays arbuthnot is that the dead body? It could be. I can't remember the name of the character that when I saw the remake, the Brono remake, and I was like, oh, Johnny Deppson's always dead. Okay, it's pretty quick, pretty quick.

I think that was the movie. Everybody was like pretty happy with his performance. Oh, Johnny Depps in this and he gets murdered brutally. Okay, good, we like that. It is the Richard.

It is the Richard Widmark character in that film. That is the Johnny depp. Oh okay, okay, so he's actually one of the Sorry, yeah, yeah, you're right. That was yet another Lumett Connery thing. And then I know I saw Family Business when it was out, but I don't remember anything about it.

In my mind, I mix it up with The Freshman. Yeah right right, Yeah, five movies together, that is. That's no joke, guys, Like you're continuing collaboration. Yeah, and not all of them are similarly Like they're all kind of of a piece, but they're not all similarly toned either. Like Family Business is much more of a comedy pet than this movie is.

That's yeah, go flowing me. Yeah yeah. I mean like Taxi Driver is like an uproarious comedy compared to this. You know, really it's got a lot of high moments of high comedy, don't doesn't it's. Ironic you bring that up.

I'm supposed to record an intro. There's a film society in Susse Marie, Ontario, and they're like, hey, can you record an intro for us for Taxi Driver. I'm like, okay, sure, yeah, Like, what a fun night at the movies. It's going to be Saturday night for these people to go out and see Taxi Driver. All right, no kidding, Yeah, no, it's we the People, not we the People.

Yeah, exactly. No, that is a really funny movie. It is. It is really funny and in the darkest possible ways. But yeah, I mean goes to uh that movie goes to hell by the end.

And also, you know, as a famously ambiguous ending that is, you know, deeply unsettling. But but that's a relatively fun time compared to the offense. Most things are, including seven, Including seven, a film that ends with the man opening a box with Gwyneth Paltrow's head in it. You know, oh, is that t what's in the box? What in the box?

Because he was asking nobody ever told them? Somebody ever told him? I thought it was a Christmas present. Se Mike. It's the implication.

Hmm. Okay, it's all about the implication. Hmm. Track it down on tub when you're watching your other bullshit on TB. I guess I don't know, ye what else does put do people watch on tub?

Like, I don't know, but you can watch this. Well, you can watch almost anything on tub. Is the thing. It's like, it's the closest you got to put up with the ads, which is of course horrible, but of the streaming services. It's the closest thing to a corner video store that there is.

Truth, it's a very sad state of affairs because like, if I got to watch commercials, I'd rather pay late fees, you know, to the corner video store. Is that well, watching the ads is in this day and age. Late fees. Yeah, I would rather. You cannot speed through them.

They've made that impossible. And uh, you know again you know that it's maybe this is maybe maybe I'm being told a message by the bye, by the advertising universe. But uh man, it's always it's always ads for drugs, and they're always like happy fun ball by the end where where it's like all the indications go on and on and on like that Saturday Night Live sketch. It's like, I'm going, wait, if you've got like to stop smoking, if this drug causes suicidal ideations, should you be advertising and on television? Even if you're warning.

People, Hey, is it? Maybe it's better to being depressed, Maybe better. Than being depressed. They can't advertise for cigarettes or a lot of alcohols on TV. But yeah, we're okay with you with all this other stuff.

Yeah, do not take it if you are pregnant or intend on becoming pregnant. Okay, that's ever in. My life, that's my state normally, as I'm always intending to be pregnant. So I'm ovulating right now, right at this moment. Yeah, but you know, I guess yeah for people watching it on TV.

The that's that's the price you gotta you gotta sit through some uh some some bad drug indications. Uh you know, red at lightning speed. Well, on that note, let's take a break and we'll play a preview for the uh well, the next Culture cast of Mike White. May. Hi.

I'm Susan and I'm Sharon, and we're the hosts of Eighties tv Ladies. Check us out wherever you find your favorite podcasts, and please like and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. At Eighties tv Ladies. You can find interviews and exclusive behind the scenes content on all of your favorite eighties TV ladies. Eighties tv Ladies is the place to go.

Please join us. Hi, this is HP from Noise Junkies and this. Is follom Alone from Dark Destinations. Please join us as we examine one of the greatest sitcoms in television history, Taxi on Night. Mister Walters at Taxi Podcast.

Good night, mister Walters, good evening, and welcome to Night Gallery. Thank you, Rod, and I want to welcome everyone to Midnight Viewing, where once a month we talk all about your follow up to the Twilight Zone, Rod Serling's Night Gallery. They say it's Rod too Las Night Gallery, and it isn't really Rod too Las Night Gallery. Somebody else's. Oh, we know, we talk about it a lot.

Your curators at Midnight Viewing are the projection Boots, Mike White. What can happen to human beings when trust is wiped out by suspicion and culture casts? Chris Stature, small Boy incasionally Crystal Ball, and I'm father Malone, the kind. Of thing that usually infests nightmares. Join us monthly at Midnight Viewing the Night Gallery Podcast at Weirdingwaymedia dot Com.

Doesn't remotely belong to me. I have no proprietary interest in that at all. Within these walls men come to seek God. He has come to seek a killer. We found the body are ably mutilated under a window which was which was found closed.

Sabodi Tufia, a man of reason in a world of blind faith. Yes, small Blood, here you mean that he committed suicide elementary and a crime that. Could not be suppressed in states. He did not write with his time. By result, I don't like this place.

I find it more stimulating. Should we tell him no? I am most curdsous in the library for myself? May I do so? No?

But what if you should learn it of his own accord? Written with lemon juice, Hi, who's. That you're overestimates talents? This one I graduate did not commit suicide. When he is challenged by a man of cruel and power, the hunter becomes the hunted brother.

You please. The matter has occurred of the utmost gravity. Had someone else not chosen to look in the wrong direction, several men of God might still be with us all along. Trube that that's here, and they also. Will have blackened fingers and blackened town.

His sand is back, just as brother William for told, Yes, I was right. He knew, just as I too would have known had I been the murderer. You go go lock them up. One final murder has been playing master master. How'll we get out?

What's so difficulty? And it's his? Sean Connery F Murray Abraham The Name of the Rose, a story of unholy. So on the next Culture cast of Mike White May, we're gonna be taking a look at the name. I was gonna say, in the Name of the Rose, the Name of the Road.

I have a special memory of the Name of the Rose. Uh, rented and watched that with my grandmother. Oh and yeah, you know, so it's like trip to the videos where it's like, oh, Sean Connery, Oh it's about monks. You think that this is gonna be totally fine, and then it is very much not fine. Yeah, we've actually covered the Name of the Rose at one point in the past, and Uh, I'm actually really excited to recover it because it's a movie that I really enjoy and Spencer similarly to yourself.

I saw it at my grandparents house when I was growing up, so it's I mean, my grandparents loved Connery. My grandfather fucking it. He loved The Third Last Crusade, The third Indiana Jones movie was his favorite. He loved Connery's bond and like the Name of the Rose is just another further extension of Connery and my grandparents to this. Speaking of the POI Row and Aggie, the Christie of it all, they were huge like Murder Mystery Readers.

So the name of the Rows is like right in that wheelhouse. So exactly makes perfect sense until it doesn't. That's right. And so we'll be joined on that episode by Richard HadAM, who we do another show with that I'm sure Mike will plug when I give him an opportunity to, which is right now. So, Mike, where can people find you in the things that you work on when you're not here with me?

Pretty much everything that I do is available over at weirdingmamedia dot com as well, with that exception of the show that we do with Richard, which is ranking on Bond, which is wrapping up this month or actually June first, I think will be the last episode that is a Patreon exclusive, So come on over to patreon dot com slash Projection booth or patreon dot com slash culture cast get your eyes and ears on that one. And we have an announcement coming up about a replacement show for that which will not be patri exclusive, but if you are a Patreon member you get early early. Access to that one. So I'm waiting with baited breath to put out the word for that one. And it'll be ad free as well one month early in ad free.

Uh, Spencer, what about you? Anything you want to plug anywhere people can find you if they want to hunt you down. Uh No, I'm making myself more and more scarce on social media. Uh really trying to pull away Uh yeah, current currently, you know, Uh, trying to get away from Instagram because that's really become a cesspool of advertising and I'm not I'm not getting to see pictures of my friends, dogs and children and vacations so much anymore because it feels like, uh, kind of a. Kind of a messed up ghost town.

So I don't I don't know, but you know, I'm teaching. We're we're a few weeks away from finally getting to summer, and then I'm gonna finally finish this movie I've been working on for too long. So That's what I'm up to. And yeah, so people won't be able to find me because uh the rest of school, I'm hunkering down and then, uh, I will not emerge publicly until my movie is done, because it has to be finished finally. Not until that groundhogs.

He's a shadow, that's. Right, exactly. No, I mean, I believe me. I have been living in groundhog Day for a long time. Uh bucks to Tony Parsons as they call it.

I haven't heard exactly. Oh my god, not the god A got hey got. Well. As for me, you can find me over atwirdingwaymedia dot com as well, where the things that I work on can be found, like this show, the soon to be announced show that Mike is talking about that will not be a Patreon exclusive, and so many other things. Uh yeah, that's where you can find it, So going over there, like rate and review this show on iTunes or Spotify.

Please, if you're getting it somewhere else, get it on one of those two places. Either one is fine. At this point, I can't really advocate for either in either direction because it doesn't seem to matter. But do one of those two if you're going to get your podcasts anywhere. Spencer, thank you so much for joining us.

This was a great conversation. Yeah, thank you, really really happy to be invited along. Thanks guys, and as always, we'll catch you on the next episode.