The Other

Weird way. I'm not gonna be upset if you. I mean, I would hope you would be upset if I didn't like a movie that you'd like. Isn't that the way of the world? Is that the way of the world.

Now, it's like, you don't like something that I like, So therefore it's a it's some sort of personal it's like sinal attack on it. Could you not like this movie? What is wrong with you? Well, you know, it doesn't really bother me. I'm I'm you know, I'm confident in the things that I like.

And if you don't get on that gravy train, it's fine. Everybody has different sensibilities. It's not maker. You know. It's like my son and I we disagree all the time.

He'll say, you know, well, I mean, I think I showed him a Black Sunday recent a couple of about a year ago or so, Robert Shaw about the you know, your blimp and all that. He was like, that's okay, And I said, that's a freaking awesome movie. It's just okay, And it was okay. And so occasionally we'll get into it a little bit, and so yeah, you know, so there's such there's that, but it's okay, it's all good, right, I mean, hey, that's that's what we're here for. And uh, that's right.

On this episode of the Culture Cast, I am still your host, Chris Stashu, much to the chagrin of many, and I am joined by my good friend. You've heard him here before. He is the Oh my god, I'm gonna butcher it. He is the home video correspondent for Movie Geeks United. Your friend in mine, no auto, this time just me and you, Adam, my friend, and yours, Adam Long.

That is I. Yes, yes, yes, so Adam, you and I are doing a bonus episode here about a movie that you had mentioned to me. Hey, Chris, have you ever seen this movie? And I said no, So here we are talking about a movie that well, we're gonna be talking spoilers. But I want to say that.

I mean, this movie came out in nineteen seventy two, but I feel like at the top here just saying we're gonna be talking about spoilers because unsurprisingly, this is a movie you should track down and check out. I'm just gonna say it here before we even talk about it, before we even talk about the movie, check this movie out. Watch it before you listen, because we're gonna spoil the living hell out of it. Got me talking about nineteen seventy two is Robert Mulligan directed The Other A Real life was good to the peris of Piquot Landing. For three hundred years they lived in this place.

The generations were rich with love, and the most beloved of all were the twins, Niles and Holland. Yes, that's summer. They shared a secret life in the apple cellar, in the nursery, in the night. Still baby scared Holland. So awful could happen?

We can still play it again. She doesn't have to know we could played in secret and knows everything. Oh God, they are child. Yes, I have thought you Now he match all your bee? Who mats?

What is it for the peries of New England? Terrible things began to happen the song tell me what is it? Like God? It was a summer of secrets, secret treasures, secret places a brother. But the most frightening secret of all is yet to come.

Where's Ryder? Tore you eating? I think I sawned down by the party. Thomas Tryon, author of the best selling novel and Robert Mulligan, director of the Summer of forty two, present a chilling new concept of terror and madness. George, what is it?

George? What is it? What happened? George? What is it?

What? God? It had been all the others? Now there is the other? Where's the baby?

So? The film is, like I mentioned, directed by Robert Mulligan, It's written by Thomas Tryon based on his book of the same name, and it stars Udhahagan, Diana Mulder, and Chris and Martin Dart. I think, I think Udvnarky and they play the Perry brothers, Holland and Niles, two brothers who get into some trouble. One might say, Adam, some some nefarious things are going on down at the down at the old Perry ranch. And yeah, so that's the setup.

Adam, I've got to know. Why? Why are we talking about the Other? A horror movie from nineteen seventy two that, according to Wikipedia, had a quiet theatrical release. Whatever the hell that it was a very quiet theatrical release.

Well, uh, I discovered this film at the age of seven. Your way, I'm not kidding, makes you like Sleeping Beauty, snow Wide and seven towards the other, thank you very much. I absolutely it was back in the day, back in the day when networks used to run theatrical things films before there were video stores on every corner, and now video stores don't even exist. Of that really shows you how how long I've been kicking around. But these were the days before you could just had to wait until films were shown on television, and you had to make an appointment to do so.

Well. I had this ritual when I was in old first second grade of going to my grandparents' house and spending the night on Friday night after a week of school, and a lot of times they would have the CBS Friday Night movie going, and this was the CBS Friday Night movie one particular Friday night, and I joined in probably about I don't know, a half hour into the film, and it really it's a slow burn. It's a very slow burn. But once you get really on its wavelength, and there was so much of what was going on that wasn't really registering with me, my grandmother had to explain the whole concept of split personalities and that nature, and I was utterly fastated by this film. I could not couldn't believe what I was seeing, even at the age of seven.

I was just it blew my mind and it was so chilling to me. As the film went on and progressed, and that that final scene where everything is transpired and you see the you see Niles in the just staring out into the just staring out a window at the end of the film. I remember seeing that image at eight, at the age of seven, and it was just incredible, indelibly edged into my mind. And I can remember we went shopping the next day at a local mall and we happened to be browsing in a bookstore and there on the shelf was the other the Thomas Trion novels. So I put two and two together.

Hey, this was a book before it was a film, so it was. It wasn't until years later that I actually read the novel, was well into my twenties by that time, just to see how it differed. In it. There are some difference, minor difference, but it's a pretty faithful adaptation. I was amazed at how I think it's actually a textbook example of how to us to execute an adaptation of a novel successfully.

I should say so I was, really, but I haven't. My history with this film goes even further than that. When I was old, probably twenty six twenty seven years old, I tracked down a collector of films. I was working as a projectionist at that time, and the guy sold me a thirty five millimeter print of the other for fifty dollars. Oh.

I talked to my boss at the time and I said, I arrange a screening of this film for my co workers. And this is in the mid nineties. This is around nineties five, nineties, sorry, ninety six, nineteen ninety six, so you can think of the movies that were popular around nineteen ninety six. So the kids that I were, and these were teenage kids that I was working with, just put a note of by the time clock and I said, listen, surprise movie. I got a movie for you.

Didn't tell them what it was about or anything, and I put that film together on the projection table and ran it for them. It was a good looking print. It was a little pinkish, but I was able to correct that with You can actually take a Sodo bottle, a Citrus Sodo bottle and cut that out and put it in front of the bulb, but it will actually restore some of the color, which I found out, so I was able to get it drinks of the trade man. Yeah, it was pretty amazing. That's the one and only time I've seen this film in the theater was when I projected it with my own print, and this was probably a three hundred seat auditorium and we this was after the theater and closed down.

It's about midnight I put it on. I was wild with anticipation about what these kids would think about it. They loved it. They absolutely loved it, every one of them. They sat just at the edge of their seat.

And the funny story about this is one of the guys, our boss, had just bought a brand new sports car and I can't remember what brand it was or but it was pretty expensive. And one of our co workers was so freaked out by the film that he actually backed into our boss's car in the parking lot exiting the theater when it was it was spooked by this film, So that was Unfortunately, the print was in the early stages of what they call the vinegar syndrome, where these prints will shrink up and they will eventually deteriorate. If they're kept in a cool environment. I moved into a I was married at the time, and my wife and I had just purchased a home and we put it in. I put it in a place to store it that wasn't an idea, and it actually deteriorated further, and so I eventually had to throw it away, unfortunately.

But I have fond memories of showing the Other in a in a theater and that was yes. So so there's some personal stories that I have with the film. Over the years, you know, I've had to diligently seek the film score was hard to find for years. That was actually issued on a CD in the mid nineties old it was paired up with the Mephisto Waltz because the score was done by Jerry Goldsmith. They paired that on a a CD with the Mephisto Waltza.

It's probably out of print now, but it's out there. But I don't know. This film has just really and over the years I had heard on VHS tape. It was not released on VHS until late in the game, probably like eighty nine. And I remember there was a trade ad in Billboard magazine when it was released.

There was first time ever. The other coming to home video and I ran it for a group of friends and again same thing. They broke up into a discussion group when the film was over with because we were trying to figure out what the hell they just saw right. And then one further story I'll tell about the film is that I was dating a girl who was from She'd grow up in Brooklyn, so she was big city girl and always reminded me that she had, you know, she was kind of cynical, I've seen it all, done it all, been there, blah blah blah blah blah. Well I ran the other for her as well, and she was amazed.

She said, I have to give it to you that I've seen a lot of films. I've seen a lot of stuff, but that film is like unlike anything I've ever seen. So, like I said, the personal stories that go along with this film, that are in connection with my introducing the people over the years, are almost as fun as the film itself well, and I can one hundred percent empathize with that because as someone who is a fan of a movie that I feel similarly to, this movie kind not forgotten, but it has its fans and its fans are vocal, yourself included and ride or die for this movie, right like, I get it, And for me, it's for me. That movie is freaked the Alex Winter tom Stern movie from the nineties, and that was the movie I was showing to my friends in college and they were live ever seen anything like before?

What the fuck is this movie? I'm like, this is? This is This is the pinnacle for me of like the kinds of movies that I'm into, And nobody has made a movie like that since, not ever, they never will. And similar to this movie, right like, there have been versions of this movie made. They mentioned them at the bottom of the Wikipedia page.

There's like eight different movies that are in the vague of this movie. This is the best of all of them. This is the like, this feels like this is a I don't I don't know how to describe this other than when I was done watching this movie, all I could think was, how had I not fucking seen this plank? That was like that was my ultimate takeaway because A I appreciate a movie, I appreciate a movie that gives no fucks, which this movie does not give a fuck. It does not bother itself with whether or not you, as an audience member, are going to be upset.

Children die with one to the bandon in this fit in ways that are not pleasant. A child takes a pitchfork too, I guess the face, and another and then another child while trying to kill a cat, eat shit into the well with the cat like it's and then the ending is you know, I mean again, just beyond the pale of existence. This is I can't even like, this is a movie. I can't even believe. I've never had anybody else tell me about Adam.

It's shocking to me. Well, I get so glad. I get. I get not only get the appeal and get why this movie would resonate with you, but I also understand why, you know, doing the research about it, it resonated with someone like Ebert, who I guess was as big of a fan in this movie as anybody else was who was a fan in this movie. Which having someone like Ebert my feelings on him aside in your camp championing your movie is not a in the seventies, eighties, and nineties, that's not something to sneeze at.

I mean, Roger Ebert saying this movie is great, and then going on Twitter when I think it was when Chris passed away and he was like, hey, you know, here's a tribute to this child actor who was in nothing else. Effectively like that, that's not something to be taken lightly. I don't feel that's true, and I think, and talking about child actors, I think that's one of the reasons why this film is so effective, because Robert Mulligan was a master at working with young actors. He was so good with that evidence with To Kill a Mockingberg, and then of course The Summer of forty two, which is another film that I'm a huge fan of, and I reunited the cast from that film for a fiftieth anniversary reunion that's on YouTube if anybody's interested in scene was so just gobsmack that I was like, we'll pull that off.

And then this film following the next year, and then he did. He ended his career with The Man in the Moon, which is was Rhese Witherspoon's film debut, which that's another beautiful film about coming of age that I think is terrific. So he was a master at working with and Neil Patrick Harris is in another one of his films called Clara's Heart with Whoopie Goldberg. That's another rubber second. So yeah, and I've never seen To Kill a Mockingbird, which is a problem.

It's and I've never read the book either. It's something that I would want to read the book and then watch the movie, because again, it's not like I don't know how important it is too American literature, you know, And I don't know how I estayed tight school without reading it. Maybe I was an ap English and that was an Honors English thing and I read The Great Gatsby and they read to billickmocking whatever. But the thing for me about this movie, and you you've already kind of touched on it, but it obviously bears a deeper mining is child actors, for the most part, get the worst rap next to animal actors. Right, don't work with kids.

Don't work with animals. That's what they always say, right, right, Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you need to act ever again. If you're Chris and Martin Martin ud knocked the let's just call them the Perry brothers, the Parry Brothers up the film, I don't think you need to act again. If this is the performance the both of you were turning in like what else is there to say really as a child actor.

In a lot of ways, like there's so much nuance to both of their performances. And again, it's so smart. The decisions that Robert Mulligan made are so smart keeping them apart off screen never on screen together at any point is again it's just so smart that it allows us to feel the dreamlike quality that the movie is totally going for it, because that's what it feels like to me, right. I don't know if you come away came away with that same feeling, but there's like a I wouldn't say Grimm's fairy tale feeling to it, but it feels like it hues close to a fairy tale of the darker variety the way they're originally told it's a cautionary tale in a way. It feels like absolutely, yeah, that's that's a good way to put it.

I think one of the keys to the film is and again it's it's also you know Tom Tryon, who wrote the novel that this was based on. We could talk a little bit about his background here and just a little bit, but you know, he knew how to tightly plot, you know, so there's just a little bit of information is given out, just a little bit here, just a little bit heap you off balance fairly anything though, which I so appreciate. Yeah, it's just enough. And that's what I have to warn people, especially modern audiences, when I introduced this film to people, I always say, now, if you've ever see if I've been watching you know, the old seventies television and the Little House on the Prairie or The Waltons, turns up, this film is going to start out like an episode of The Waltons or a Little House on the Prairie.

It lulls you into a sense of complacence, but it just gradually adds layer upon layer of menace until by the final fifteen minutes of the film it's just reached a fever pitch and you're just you're just, oh my god, what's what are we watched? What are we witnessing here? And that's the trick of the film is the fact that you know, you have to be patient, and I think modern audiences would you know, they might lose patience with it. And I beg people, and I just give it a chance. You will get there and I think you will be richly rewarded if you give yourself the time to go where it's going well.

I mean, look, honestly, think it in a modern setting. And this is something that's come up a lot now. Slowburn horror movies are a sick I mean, Tye West has made an entire career off of Slowburn horror movies, to the point where people don't like his horror stylings because it's like, it's just another hour and a half of nothing and then the last ten minutes. You know, I get the sentiment, but it feels like a contemporary complaint of like, oh, just get to the action already. It's like, why not give us some world building, even if this is a singular, self contained narrative that has nothing else past it, build the world that these characters inhabit.

Give us an idea of what we can expect and how you're going to subvert those expectations because you're the only one, as a filmmaker who can do it. We are going to fill in whatever narrative gaps that are maybe missing for us. But I really appreciate that this movie takes effectively like a half an hour to get going, oh yeah, and it's only an hour and forty minutes. It's not like it's two and a half hours, so oh, you know, well there's still two hours left. It's it's like a half an hour to get to the point where it kind of starts dawning on you as an audience member, what in God's name is going on?

And here's the thing? And I was kind of curious, again, you saw it when you were, you know, a kid, So I wonder if you can remember when you watched it, and because I felt like I kind of thought that the other kid was dead throughout the whole movie, but I was like, there's no way that that's all that's going on here, because it makes the movie, makes it very apparent that it's not just that, because if it was just that, this movie wouldn't be nearly as interesting. So was it. Is there a moment in the movie where you kind of turned onto what was going on? Or when you watched it the first time, was it like I don't realize that the kid is dead until they show the gravestone, or are there moments in the movie that you've kind of picked out through watching it where it's like, this is an obvious moment where they're trying to to really, you know, signal hey, by the way, he's probably not actually there.

Yeah, I can remember that. It did dull on me that the especially after seeing the when he falls down the wheel. It pretty much what he's the flashback sequence I remember that was. You know, I think you all that. I think the concepts of the film that escaped me at age seven was the playing of the game that the grandmother teaches Aida, the Russian mother teaches Niles to play the game, and we get into that here in just a little bit that that whole concept just went over my head at seven.

I didn't get that. My grandmother was trying to simplify it, and I remember her saying, well, he's just got a split personality. He's he's he's imagining that his dead brothers still around, and you know, he's just he's it's a split personality. Things. She didn't get into all the technicalities of you know, this is this is a game that he's playing.

And I understood that upon subsequent viewings when I was in my twenties and it finally came out on the whole video then it I thought, oh, this is even better than I thought when I see what's going on here? Right, so okay, so best I can tell it. I want you to correct me or send me on the right path if I'm going astray. The game is his inability to process his brother's death, and Aida has given him what could be viewed as a coping mechanism, but I would but I would feel is almost the complete antithesis, the fucking coping mechanism, the unhealthiest of coping mechanisms, which is, not only is he pretending his brother is alive, but she makes the mistake. I think you and I would both agree to yeah, to reinforce that this is okay, and say like, oh, yeah, he's here, all right.

It's like, yeah, this is this is a bad idea, but that's what the game is, right. It's more or less just like a suspect. I guess it's like a suspension of reality, a willing suspension of reality. Yeah, well, you mentally project I think it's kind of a projection type thing where you mentally project yourself into another living being. There's a sequence where he imagines that he is a bird and he's flying and he's seeing everything as the bird is soaring over the heels and the valleys.

There's this sequence is beautifully shot by Robert Sertise, who shot many films as we all know, and you know that that illustrates that he's able to inhabit the mindset of whatever thing that he's pretending to be, and so he can do the same thing with his brother. He can, you know, it goes beyond I think just you know, he's, like I said, mentally projecting himself into his brother's mind and his brother obviously it's established that his brother had a little bit of an evil, just a tad mischievous character, and so Niles, I don't think necessarily is I think he's a pretty good kid. But Holland is the bad seed, so to speak. And so now the Holland's dead starts playing this game and projecting himself into Holland's mindset, and he starts doing the typical sort of thing that Holland would do were he's still alive.

So that's essentially so I guess the question that I have is Holland is the character of Holland we effectively see one time the movie, right like we see him, we see these projections of him which would be. I guess in a lot of ways it's equivalent. And I'm not a fan of this movie, but it's a good example in a way to explain, maybe to an audience member who's still listening and that hasn't watched the movie yet. This is essentially, in a lot of ways child fight Club. Yeah it is.

It is. That's a good that's great. Yeah, that's that's an excellent analogy, and I am a fan of Fight Club. Like right, Tyler Dirton does not exist in the context of the story. It is a It is a creation of the mind of Edward Norton's character in this one.

His brother did exist. But again, the question then becomes, what would Holland have actually done if he had actually been alive. Would he have been killing babies and doing all of these terrible zag Yeah, probably Sod's trying to throw a cat down, Well exactly. That tells me where you're going with this character. And you know, he's obviously pushed his father down the stairs in the episode.

Yeah, he killed his own father, So that's established. This is before Holland bites the dust him self. Oh, you know, we pretty much established that Holland is he's just a rotten bastard. He's about as bad as a child as humanly possible, right, Like, yeah, he really is. And the fact that he that he dies, it doesn't in there.

It just continues on because the grandmother has taught Niles how to play this game, and so he's getting into the mindset of of what Holland would do in these situations, which is not necessarily a good thing. So that whole concept of playing the game, and I love how they illustrate that with several sequences. The sequence with the Magician and they go to the fair and they see the magician and he says, play the game, and we'll figure he's doing these tricks, right, So he's that to me is and then they walk out and he's like, ah, he's a phony because he knows exactly how the Magician's pulling these tricks off, because he's using AIDA's technique, right. Speak. Well, it's interesting because again, you obviously have a movie where the entire film, for the most part is the two child leads.

Right, And again we've talked kind of already mentioned this, you know, stereotype, and I think it probably if you've worked in the industry, and maybe he's fairly deserved by child actors and animal actors and everybody who says, but these were the good ones. It's like, these are the ones that are the exception that proves the rule. But it's funny that no point in this movie did I sit and say, like, this is a child I'm watching actors, which I think, again, like when you can get that lost in a performance of again two people playing different people, but also trying to hint to the audience maybe there is more going on. It's that's not easy. This is such a balancing act.

And you know, the script obviously is being written by the guy who wrote the book, so that is a massive help. But then he goes on to be disappointed by the movie. Yes he was, and I don't understand that to me is a mystery, saying the script is so faithful to the book. I don't understand why you would be unhappy. And there is a document out there about the making of the Other, which good good friend of mine put together.

I will become friends in the years since he put it together. Adam Zanzi's the guy's name, and get it on YouTube. And he went and actually visited the locations. He talked to everybody that's still around who was involved with the film. He did an excellent job.

It's like a ninety minute video essay. It's pretty good together. Yeah, it's it's good stuff. And so he he did some research on that very subject, and he couldn't even figure out why. Thomas, he thinks that it may have been trying may have been a little disappointed with Mulligan's directorial style, and that might have been why he was And I don't understand that because I think Mulligan just does such a great job of concealing things.

As you mentioned, it's it's it's really trick. It's not easy to pull off, and I think he definitely does it with Boy. And by the time the big reveal at around the one hour mark, but the time that occurs, you know, he's he's done a great job concealing what's really going on. And if you haven't figured it out by the end, right when they're standing in front of the kids, graves, I like, look at the thing. It's like, okay, now, I know yea.

But to your point, I like so many people and I don't know where you fall in this camp. I am not the biggest fan of movies that are predicated on like a twist, right like, and I think that's somebody like m Night Shamalan and his ilk are to blame for that, and also my love of things like Twilight Zone, Tales from the Crypt, you know, all of the anthology stuff from the seventies and eighties and nineties and even up until now. A lot of those anthology series have episodes that are predicated on a massive twist. And you know, the best kind of twist is the one that, yeah, it's a big deal, but it doesn't really change your enjoyment of the movie. It just helps recontextualize things.

And I mean talked about this recently with something like The Menu and other kind of these big horror movies that have this kind of crazy twist halfway through. And this one has a pretty big twist, but it feels earn again like I was watching the movie, going, Okay, if the kid is dead this whole time, fine, and it's gonna work if that's the case, And it ends that ends up being the case, and it ends up working because their performances are so kind of just enthralling that you get lost in their performances and it kind of doesn't matter if the kids a lie, but the movie going. But he has been dead, and here is how he died, And now you get a better sense of what in the hell is going on, because again, up until that moment, it's not necessarily clear that Holland is a quote evil child or the bad seed.

But what he's doing when he dies leaves no room for the audience to have any interpretation other than this is the spawn of state. Like yes, you know, I mean he causes the death of one, two, three, four people? Where for three people? And I guess there's a cat get away, you know, the cat. I didn't see the cat go down the well with him.

Maybe I wasn't paying attention hard enough. But three people die because of him, Yeah, yeah, I guess, including the including the baby. Where's the baby? Oh? My weird god.

And when it when it showed the the guy that the the the the poor Italian immigrant who is totally going to take the fall for this. When I saw him with the when when I saw him with the barrel, I was like, oh no, like here is this where this is going? Because again, like they I think maybe they gilded the lily a little bit by having the Lindbergh baby thing in there. But I like that that is but I like that that is the That is the kind of cultural reference point that everybody in seventy one could totally understand. Oh now, I think that might be a little lost on people.

Unfortunately, Yeah, totally would be. We're seventy plus years past it. But at the time that would have been a pretty big deal and a pretty obvious cultural reference point for everybody, right yeah, yeah, and they and I think you can still get the essence of what they're getting at because when he reads the book about the change, the story about the change link to his mother, that's obviously foreshadowing that something, something nasty's getting ready to happen. Right, He's reading his story to his his invalid mother, who's an invalid because of his because of something Holland did it pushed his mom down the stairs, like yep, yep, and and oh I can remember seeing that when I was That was one of the earliest scenes I remember seeing in the film the first time when I was seven, and I remember seeing him push his mother down the stairs and thinking, boy, this is this is I was immediately hooked.

I wanted to see where this was going well. And what I really appreciate about Mulligan and try On is like he should gets pushed down the stairs, and then it just the movie just keeps going. It doesn't like show the aftermath of it or anything like it takes a minute to get back to her and what's going on with her. And the same thing happens with the neighbor who dies from the heart attack, same thing happens with the kid that dies. We don't see necessarily like owe them finding the body and everything happening.

And that feels like such a seventies way of doing it. And I really love that style of just not lingering, just keeping just keeping moving with the story and just continuing to bombard you with things, not like hanging on, Oh the mom fell down the stairs, and let's spend ten minutes with that. It's like, no, we'll come back to it in a moment. But you need to understand that the plot is continuing and this is just part of the grand tableau that we're painting here. Yeah, and the mother knows what's going on, she knows, but now she's put into a situation where she can't can no longer speak, So you know, and she realizes what's going to happen to the baby when he starts reading the book about the changing, and the tears are coming out of her eyes and she wants to warn somebody, but she can't.

She's completely powerless though, because of what's happened to her earlier. Earlier in the film, it's just it's it's just really nasty stuff in such an effective way. Another thing that you know, you were talking about this film with being forgotten and all off the radar, and that goes back to what we talked about in our earlier show with the Harry and Tonto. This is the twentieth century Fox title. That's why we're in yeah, because this is Disney sitting on this property and they have no interest in reissuing this.

It was previously issued as a Twilight Time Blu ray, which hap I think it was a Eureka issued it as a UK Blu ray. I don't have that. When I have the I have the Twilight Time, which is long out of print, and it's going for about one hundred dollars now on any day. Boy oh boy, you've got and it's really a nice transfer and it has no extras. But it does have the score by Jerry Goldsmith, the complete score.

The score of THEMS on the CD was slightly truncated. This is the complete isolated score and it's been remastered in full stereo. It's beautiful. Somebody actually ripped the score and put it all together on YouTube you can actually get it. There's an original soundtrack file or something up there on YouTube of the other by Jerry Goldsmith.

But it's one of the great Jerry Goldsmith scores that nobody really talks about. It just lends such an effective I mean, it has these beautiful romantic themes at the beginning of the film, and then the music comes more menacing as the along with the film was it reaches its eventual conclusion. I just think it's and and the editing in the cinematography, as I mentioned the Roberts ortise, I just love how it's shot. With the opening scene of the film, was there there down pond or whatever, and they have these the cat tails floating in the air, and the way that's it just puts you in this relaxed movie. You know, you have no idea where this thing is going by this opening sequence and it's this beautifully shot by Like I said, Bob's ortise was one of the great sematographers, and this is just if you look at his resume on IMDb, you will be wowed if you carry anything about films, the things he shot, and this was just one of many jewels in his crown, I think.

But yeah, we can talk about Tom try On a little bit. I think that's an interesting story. Yeah, I mean actor, novelist, and I guess just kind of traveling man about Like it's weird, like his career in a lot of ways, like seventy two is a big moment and then nothing else, like it's kind of what it feels like, right, will He had some books that did you know hit One of his later books, crowd Heads, was a anthology, a book of short stories in a similar vein, and one of those stories is called Fedora, and that actually was one of Billy Wilder's final films. Fedora served as the basis for his nineteen seventy eight film with William Holden, where he reunited with William Holden after Sabrina and at Boulevard.

So so there was another Thomas Strott and the follow up novel Harvest Home, which is also quite good. I've read that it was made into a mini series and seventy eight with Betty Davis, and it's pretty It's done by Leo Pian, the director who's the uncle of Sean Pien, and it's pretty good. Not quite as good as the book. I think there was because of televisions. There's some practices, there were some things that they right, Luke.

So it's a pretty nasty piece of work too, as far as like the nastiness of the story. Not I mean, is it is it? Is? It? Is it a it's a horse?

Oh yeah, it's horror. It's horror, and it's it's very similar to The Wicker Man. It's there was a thing going on which now well, actually I would say it's a precursor to Midsummer, which draw more modern reference. It's similar to that because essentially what it is it's a husband and wife and their kids. They decided they want to get out of the rat race and they moved to this colony up in the well.

I guess it's in Connecticut, as you know, the same setting as the other. I think Stephen King of Connecticut. What's going on? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it kind of is. And essentially I think it's a gradual reveal that things aren't all what they seem.

Man, I don't want it too much away, but for the time because I'm gonna watch it like at this point. I mean, I'm interested in a lot of like a full Corey stuff. So this sounds like it's right up my alley. Yeah, it's pretty good. It's it's up there on YouTube.

I'll think the quality it's it was released in a VHS truncated VHS format. It's originally like three and a half hours, and they the VHS was like an hour and fifty nine minutes, so they cut a big chunk out of it. So you want to try to avoid that when if you can. But I keep hoping that a Blu Ray will emerge because a lot of these TV movies are making their way to Blu Ray. So I'm hoping that it's a universal production, so the rights to that should not be in limbo.

They should be easily attained for anybody who wants to put it out on Blu Ray. So that would be that would be a good thing. But yeah, I saw that when it originally aired, had not read the book, and then went back later and read the book. And that's it's pretty good. The book was a best seller.

It did well. The other and Harvest Home were really both of them so well as far as booked, right. And there was a time when the other was actually taught in literature class, or so I'm told. That's kind of fallen by the wayside at this point. But but though Tom Tritt was an actor, h pretty you know, fairly successful one.

I mean, he was doing it. I actually have talked to several people who actually worked with him and knew him, and they all speak very highly of him as a person. They said he was a sweet, soft spoken person. You wouldn't have particularly thought that he had this sort of to tell such a such a story like this, or the ones that he did. But so he died fairly young nineteen ninety one, I think, of stomach cancer, at the age of a sixty five, So he didn't to be particularly old.

But he wrote novels on and off through the years up until just a couple of years before he passed, And so he was he was a pretty sturdy writer. But he I think his career was curtailed by a run in with Auto Priminger on the set the Cardinal Auto Priminger was just a known for being just a tyrant as a director. And I think he's kind of come to light since then that Thomas Trim was gay and he had not that was not knowledged at the time. He was kind of a private person, But since then I think some of his partners have let that be. No, I don't think that's any secret anyway, Auto Primature.

I think, for what I understand, he sensed that there may have been some that might have been the case, and he pounced upon him and basically victimized him and just really gave him a nasty time. He was the lead in this film of the Cardinal, and he was just just an horrible human being, to the point where Tom Trunk was just so traumatized that he said, I can't do this anymore. And he didn't know what he was going to do next, and so but he had this idea for the other and it was he sat down and put pen to paper and then he promoted the hell out of it. You may be able to find some clips of him on talk shows in the days when they actually had all authors on talk shows. It's an amazing thing to think about a writer being a guest on a talk show.

James Patterson's books sell themselves if he even writes them on his own. Yeah, that's debatable. But anyway, so talk Toyland promoted the hell out of this book and that was one of the reasons why it took off. It really, it really did well, and it was people were buying it. It was flying off the bookshelves, and so it was only inevitable that it would become a film in twentieth Century Fox bought the rights to it and Robert Mulligan was flying high off of the success of The Summer forty two, which was one of the top five grossing films of nineteen seventy one.

It actually made more money in its box office year than a Clockwork Orange or Dirty Harry don't realize. So it quite well, and so he you know, when you're a director and you have a hit, you can pretty much choose what you want to so he chose the Other as his next project, and unfortunately it did fall flat as we which was a surprise because you would think that with the novel having sold so many copies that it would just you know, that it would do well. And it came out in May of seventy two. I think they filmed it in late seventy one. Most of it was shot around the fall of seventy one, I think.

And it just like I said, it just it was quietly released in May, as you said, and it just didn't really do that much unfortunately. And but it has gained in cult status over the years. The people who like myself have encountered it along the way, they never forget it. They never seem to forget it. So it it is one of those films that has a way of staying with you.

And we could talk about the cast in this film. That's I think there's some interesting casting. I always like to remind people that John Ritter is in this film. Boy isn't he a very a very baby faced, very young John Ridder. He is, Yes, he is in this film, third third role, I think, I think so.

Yeah. Heven doing episodes of The Waltons around the same time, I think, which is kind of in a similar vey right right. Uh So there was that in Victor French, as you mentioned, Who's the Handy Man. He was a little house on the prairie and then later Highway to Heaven. So he had a working relationship with a land and they were really close friends.

And so he plays the and he was a great character actor. He turned up in a lot of stuff, as did Lou Frazel, who plays the the the I think he's the uncle. I believe he is. Ye, he's the one who says that he says it's a great day for the human race or something like that, which is a great line, a great just like dad thing to say, right, yeah, yeah. But he's a great character actor.

He turns up in Spielberg's first film, Duel. He's the bus driver. Oh yeah, you remember it, the guy who's when the bus gets stranded in Dennis. We were freaking out. You gotta get that bus out of here, you know.

It's Lou Frazelle is the is the bus driver. He's also memorably cast again in another Rapper Mulligan film in the Summer for forty two will go back to that again. He plays the proprietor of a drug store who is there's the main character of the film is a shame to ask for condoms, and so there's a terrific scene where he's he's trying to ask the druggist for condoms in a in a way that doesn't get too much attention. And so that's quite a funny sequence that's played the profess action by louver Zelle. So he was one of these great He turns up in, oh, just so many things that Capricorn one, just tons of television shows.

You'll see him in Isis, The Mighty Secret, The Secrets of Isis, which was on Saturday Mornings. And so he's just one of these great character actors that was in so much stuff. And he died unfortunately, in nineteen seventy nine of lung cancer, so he didn't make it very long either. I think he was like fifty nine or something. Yeah, So so there's some And then you have Uda Hoggan, say like the one and only the great acting teacher who plays the grandmother in this film at a very pivotal part in the film.

You have her, and then you have Dinah Muldar, another great character actress who turns up in so many things. Interestingly enough, she also played David Banner's sister in an episode of The Incredible Hulk where he goes home to visit his family. So interesting. I really like kind of how how Uda Hoggan's performance is is in No way, shape or form malicious. And that was what I was kind of expecting, was this kind of like right right, like, because that's the expectation, is like she's teaching him to stay and he learns it, but she is, you know, whatever her druthers are, she has them, and she's trying to get him to learn the game and like understand what that means.

And it could have gone the direction of there's something nefarious here, but she is the one who finds out it's nefarious, you know, unbeknownst to her. I guess that's That's kind of the thing I was wondering with this movie and kind of your take on it when you have these characters and there's a scene of her going, you know, oh my god, like he he does not understand that he is doing this? Is it? Is it your interpretation of the movie that Niles at any point realizes what's going on because she understands what he is going on and she is the only one other than the mom who cannot verbalize anything. Oh yeah.

But again, like the way the movie ends, you have Niles, like you said, looking out the window and this very haunting shot with like a single tear running down his eye. Oh yeah, the interpret what is what is your interpretation of that ending? What does that mean to you? Because I'm curious I kind of have my own take on it, But what kind of what is it? What does that mean for the audience and the character by the end of the movie in your mind?

Well, I think that the obviously you have Aida, the grandmother. She sacrifices herself an attempt to end the life, to extinguish the life of Niles, which does not end successfully as we just mentioned. And so Aida was the only one who had verbal communication skills, who could who knew the secret of Niles he's really up to so with her death and the mother can't speak anymore due to her accident at Holland slash Niles caused earlier in the film. So with the mother being the only one who truly knows what's going on, I think, to me, the message I got was he's just going to continue going on and doing what he's done. He can't stop himself at this point.

It's, as she says, it's gone too far. Yeah, and and but and that's and I really love because you've mentioned it a couple of times that that kind of reading of the Changeling story. I think that for me, it's one of the smartest parts of the movie because it informs the end of the movie, right, like it informs that last scene where you're like, Okay, so now he's beyond reproach. There's no saving him, and he maybe hasn't been quote taken over by somebody else, but he's let himself become someone else willingly. He hasn't see.

Yeah, in the book, there's a scene at the end of the book where he's actually in the insane, that he's actually been sent to the House, the home for the criminally insane. I'll get it out. Sure, got sent up to Bellevue, as they would say on Barney Miller. Yes, send him, send him up the river. Yeah, he's he's but he at the end of the book, he basically you get the sense that he's completely taken over by Holland.

Holland has completely taken over him. There is no Niles left at all, right, and so you get that that sense at the end that's that that's what's going on. So you know, and there is an allusion to that in the film because he says there's a sequence where he says something about are you Holland he goes, I'm I'm Niles, I'm Niles Perry. He goes, are you really or something to that conversation that they have. But I'll tell you one of the most effective things sequences in this film.

To me, it stood out as a as a kid, and it really still gets me as an adult. I just think it's so creepy and so effective, is right after she tells him he's got to stop playing the game, and so he goes into the parlor. He's just sitting in there with the information that he's got to, you know, just cut this out, got to stop it, and he can't literally cannot help himself. And so then he he imagines that his brother is there and he says, remember, and so they have this flashback to show you how the game started where his brother was in the coffin, and he goes over to the coffin and his brother had hit their father's ring on his hand and his hand was swollen. He couldn't get the ring off, and he said, just use the garden shears, you can just take it off.

It's okay. And so he's imagined that he's having this conversation and there's nothing, no sound effects at all but the ticking of the clock in the background. It's just so incredibly well done, just the tick tick of the grandfather clock and no music, nothing except the dialogue between the two of them and the just to me, that's just a master class in how to effectively stage a sequence like that. To me, it's just amazing. Well, and you mentioned it like this movie is very bloodless.

I mean, for a for a movie where a child gets drowned in a wine barrel, you see, you see nothing, And that's kind of what you know, I was mentioning, you know about you know, they don't linger on any of this. You know, the kid, kid takes a pitchfork to the chest, face whatever, dies. We never see it. We see what we could believe to be it happening in first person, but we don't see it. We don't.

We see the mom ball down the stairs, but that's it. We don't see Uda Hogan running around on fire. We don't see any of it. And yet this movie is terrifying, and I think that, you know, again, like the seventies are such a special time for filmmaking because everybody felt like they were using restraint where they needed to but going for where they didn't, where they didn't need to show restraint, they went for it. But with stuff like this, you know, Robert Mulligan's not saying let's just throw as much gore on the screen as we can, or let's show them something they've never seen.

It's never even really said what happens to the bait? You have characters going and looking and seeing, but they don't show us. And it's so smart. It's just whatever it is is we're imagining, it's way worse than whatever the reality is. And the reality is terrible in and of itself, obviously, but to show such restraint is so smart.

Exactly. Yeah, totally agree, totally agree. Yeah, it's like I said, it's just a it's just a I think a lot of directors could learn from the film if it took the time to watch it. Some of the way the ways that things are staged. I just I'm just amazed.

And these are things that I would not have necessarily picked up on as a seven year old. I wasn't I was more story driven then. I didn't pick up on stylish, you know, stylistics or directorial flourishes and things of that nature. That's just not something that I picked up on until I was well into my twenties and then I've noticing stuff, Hey, this is so well done. You know, this is just the way this is, you know, put put together here.

And so I just think that Mulligan just really nails it. He gets the story tone and told and like you said, very efficient amount of a very efficient amount of time. You don't really doesn't believe to the point, like you said, you're in for just a little over an hour and a half and the and it's done, and it's over and so and you've got a lot to think about when it's all said. Well, and to your point about you know, showing it to other people and them kind of sitting down and talking about it after. I mean that, for me is the sign of a movie that deserves my attention is when people are willing to sit afterwards and have a discussion about it, as opposed to this was good or this was bad like that to walk away from this movie and say that was good and that's it's kind of missing maybe the point because again, like it's asking questions about identity and self identity, and in a lot of ways, like what it means to lose yourself and and also I think in a way it's a little bit of a rumination on how people process grief and loss because again, I mean, ultimately, at the end of the day, he just can't deal with the fact that his brother is dead.

That's ultimately what this movie boils down to is his inability to process his brother. His brother's death and everything else comes coming out of that is what we see. But the agency that he has is he has his own agency. Even if you believe Holland did come and take him over, he's still doing it on his own. Ultimately.

Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's true. And the grandmother's concern for her and love for her grandson, her surviving grandson, which she says, you know I would. He says something about you when he finds she finds out that he's still playing the game. He says something to her about you, you love you, still love me, or something like that, and he goes, I've not loved I love you more than my life for something of that nature. I love you, There's nothing I love more than so anyway, she has this deep, abiding love for the surviving grandson, ells and she's willing to get get him involved in this potentially dangerous affair which does turn dangerous on a psychological level, and so that that all stems from her, from her love for this for her grandson, which so there's that.

But yeah, there's a lot to think about. Yeah, I've I've had this multiple occasions people that I've shared it with in my life who just wanted to talk about this film when it was over with. They just wanted to discuss it for a good five ten, maybe even a half hour, you know, something like that. Well, and again, I mean, it leaves you with a lot of questions, but not in a bad way. It just leaves you with a bunch of questions as to you know, self responsibility, what it means to grieve, what it means to Again, like again, I've never had a family member passed away like this, So I can't comment on levels of grief and stress and how those manifest because again, this is I mean, you know, maybe people aren't being quote possessed or asket really projecting or creating a hallucinatory version of their the person in their life that passed away, But there are people that do.

That is a thing, and there are people that do struggle with, like you said, multiple personalities or split personalities, or I would think probably closer to something like maybe bipolar, because again, multiple personality disorder is exceedingly rare and almost doesn't actually exist, at least the way the way the movies, the way that the pictures show it, as they would say, but something like this is playing in that kind of sandbox but doing something interesting, because again it's not just astro projection. It's also a dead brother who his Again, whether or not he has ever existed beyond beyond his death is up to the audience's interpretation. And I find that to be so smart and and the novel ending with him in in a sane asylum feels a little on the nose for if it had been in the mood, I think so too.

Yeah, that was wise for them to excite that, and I guess that was Tom Tryon who decided not that in there, and so that, yeah, that that was wise. But you know, some people have criticized the film for saying it's too beautiful, and that I think that was one of Tom Tryon's raps against the film was that it was just too beautifully shot. And you know, I think it's quite menacing. The way it's, the way that it's the way that it's photographed. I think I think I would not say that.

I don't. I don't get that, but yeah, he's he was just so vocal about his dislike for it and saying that it could have been maybe it was the editing. I don't think it was well directed. And then there was a there's talk that he might even directed, and then he decided not to, or either the studio gave it to Robert Mulligan because he was writing at that point. There's a lot of confusion as to why Tom Troyn didn't direct the film.

But I'm not sure that it would have been as effective as it was sometimes for the first time director, especially a novelist. But then again, he wasn't actor, so I may have been able to pull off. He had been on film sets before, so you know, good what who knows. But I'm happy with the films as it stands. And so such a weird complaint that a movie's too beautiful, I know, yeah, yeah, And that is one of the complaints that I've I've heard that it's too romanticized.

I think that works in the favor of the movie feeling like a fairy tale. Yeah, it does, it absolutely does. Again, maybe that's not the intention. Maybe Thomas Tryon wasn't expecting to write a modern fairy Grimm's fairy Tale, the Jason's Story, But the way it's presented here it really leans heavily into that. I mean, and again, being shot in the seventies on film helps, it just does.

There's something that's really magical about film shot in the seventies. Yeah. Yeah, Well, the craftsmen who were behind the cameras, like as we mentioned, Robert Certise and so many others of his il they had been just been they were journeymen cameraman. You know, they've been doing it since the thirties forties. They knew their craft, they knew how to do it well.

And it's it's very evident when you see these films that are just shot with such a confidence, as you would say, and I just I just I just think it's a really I just wish. I just hate the fact that it's a Fox property and the Disney and it's one of the great you know, it's just right up there. As we mentioned with the Harry and Tanto it's it's the same area that they're just sitting on this catalog of rich material such as this, and they won't even allow it to be reissued on physical media. They won't stream it. Uh, they just they just don't care because you can't take this and turn it into a you can't take the I P and do something with it.

It's not important, which I mean again, you know, so we've and we talked about this last time we were talking together, and I mean, look, there is a fair amount of cynicism in the industry, right, I mean you I think you went saw Avatar Way of the Water, right, like, yeah, I mean you know that that is more what Disney is interested in selling. Oh right, And and it's you know, it's it's like you said, yes, it is a shame because to have something that is imminently franchisable is a hell of a lot more enticing than yes, having somebody come in and say, oh, I want to redirect the other Ah no, sorry, we have no interest in something like that. I mean, that is what we're talking about here. That is the That is the level of I guess disregard that.

It feels like, especially with Disney, and I feel like it's almost Disney alone of a singular focus on something so financially important and yet not creatively important or rewarding. I mean again, I'm not going to say Paul Rudd and Evan Jelane Lily and Michael Douglas aren't having the time of their lives in the AMN movie, but like, come on, I'm I don't want to drag Marvel, but like it's oversaturated now and Disney is to blame, Like Disney and Marvel are to blame almost singularly at least for that aspect of it, and this whole thing with sitting on properties and not just like if it were me and if it were you, we'd probably take all of these and do something that would be a Fox streaming platform or part of the Disney Plus platform.

That is, all of these kinds of things that are literally just sitting somewhere, Like it's just money you're leaving on the table, It's just money you're not making. Because there are people like yourself and like myself, who if Disney went, We've got Fox's back catalog here, would you like to see these on a streaming platform? Who the fuck would say? No? Not exactly exactly, you know to The sad thing is that when Disney does put something out on physical media, it's usually subpar transfers.

You can just tell. The extras are all electronic press kit variety type stuff. It's they just put zero effort and they're just leaving money on the table. Because there are people like myself who are huge physical media collectors, who who love this sort of stuff and would love to have some of these rich titles that we have from their history available to us, and we can't get them. And if they're not going to do it, then why not form them out to another boutique label or something.

They won't even do that. Last week there was an announcement that Disney had signed a deal with Mule Creek, which is one of the uh, you know, boutique labels. But unfortunately Mule Creek is not in the industry is having some of the worst look transfers. The the bit rates are so low on those discs, and the only and the and the agreement with Disney was that they can only issue things that have previously been issued on DVD or blue rate. They can't dig into their their catalog and reissue and put things out that have never been put out, so they're only gonna be they're gonna be limited, and they're not gonna be able to do for occasion.

It's like, what is the point, what is the point with all it? I don't get it. I don't. I think ultimately the point is Nana nana, boo boo. We have this and you don't like.

Again, I know it's not that, but it feels like it. It's like, what are you gaining from not being proactive in releasing these things to people, or at least making them available to stream because I don't know where you would watch this, Because you can watch a Spanish language version on YouTube, which is totally a thing, but to find the movie you would have to go through some channels that some people may not want to going and buying one hundred dollars DVD or illegally downloading it through torrent websites, which, again, honest to god, if they're not providing access to it, what the fuck does it matter if you illegally downloaded it. I mean that's as someone who, again, my feelings on illegally downloading things are going to differ from everybody's.

I think a lot of people and you might agree. If you can't provide it to me in any other way, then fuck you. I'm gonna download it and watch it like I can't. I can't abide you not caring at all. I'm right there with you.

I mean, I mean, I am right there with you. And you know you gotta you know you, if you'll give us a copy that we can pay for pay for it, yeah right. But if you're if you're going to release Wally on Criterion and call it good folks, that's not enough and it'll never be enough. And you know, I think that this was the unintended consequence of the Disney Fox merger, twentieth Century Fox merger that everybody was crowing about me and you and now we're all just sitting here like yeah, and that's exactly what happened. Like we were worried this was going to happen, and it's exactly exactly, like, yeah, hey, but Predator and Alien are getting new movies?

Okay? Is that the only twentieth century Box property anybody fucking knows? Like what universe are we? What? What universe are we in?

Where it's like you've got stuff like this, you have so many other things Harry and Tonto as well, Harry and Tonto a movie that effectively is being re made with Tom Hanks like poorly might like it. Just it's so strange because stuff like this needs a spot for it, specifically like a streaming platform like a Criterion channel. But for twentieth Century Fox Property Sport or even the Disney or even the Disney stuff that they don't care about anymore. My god, how many Disney TV movies have no no existence outside of maybe somebody who put it on YouTube from a VHS that they had in the eighties. Like I just I have a hard time getting behind people that.

Again, I don't buy physical media, but physical media is a necessity. Yeah, if you want the high if you want the best quality possible, that's the way you Even if you're if you're streaming stuff, you're not going to get the high bit rates. You just can't. They can't. There's no space that they they're not physically able to do that.

So if you really are a purist like myself, you know that that's that's the way to do it. And so you know, and you're talking about the Disney titles in the Disney Library, not not talking about between the sixty Fox stuff. People tend to forget the type of stuff that we were getting, you know, thirty years ago from Disney, like The Doctor with William Hurt or Oliver Stone's Nixon, or What's Love Got to Do with It? The biopic of Tina Turner with the Lawrence Fishburn. You know that's an Angela Bassett.

These are the kind of movies that Disney was financing thirty years ago. That my how Times of Jane. Yeah, I'm not sure Disney cares about anything that's not Lyn Manuel Miranda written or Marvel or Star Wars, either adjacent or specific. So which is perfectly fine, but you know, again, like it just it's a shame because it feels like people like ourselves are screaming into the void asking to have somebody just care for two seconds at a company where they have so many people who are working around the clock to do everything else but dig into their back catalog and and like we said, it's just money on the table, it's just money that they're not getting that there are people willing to give easily twenty thirty bucks a pop for this, and you know what, maybe do like Warner did with the like pressed to own type thing where it's you know, we're going to press it when you order it.

Not it's not just we don't have thousands of these lying around, which also is a great option. Why not just open up your back catalog and make it where it's pressed to own, as if Disney couldn't afford to do that, like exactly again, like that's that's as as a friend of mine who I podcast with who works for Prime Video said, the Amazon Lord of the Ring show is the rounding error for Amazon, Like that's what they spent on that show is a fucking rounding error for Amazon. They don't give a shit, like and ultimately that I feel the same way about Disney. It's just like faceless hydra like organization that as in not the comic book hydra, but like a hydra of mythological creation because I have to fucking clarify now, But it's that same thing where it's like it's all encompassing, but yet all it is is just like this faceless fucking comic book and Star Wars factory now, yeah, and and and they're rebooting Planet of the Apes.

I heard they're doing another one of those. So there's that too. Yeah, it's uh, you know, it's it's really sad. And I know so many people that I hear about, you know, on social media and people who follow me on movie geeks, you know, who are telling me they're clamoring for a four K release Conic Error or Tombstone or The Rock, all these nineties movies that Disney is sitting on and they don't care. They don't care.

Well, The Rock already got a Criterion version twenty years ago, so we're good. Yeah, so we'll hits you right, I'm we're sure. It's for pets Bluster. We're good, like, we're good. We're good now.

It's you know, it's a shame. And I feel like whenever you and I get together, it kind of always comes up. But I mean, again, this is another movie that is a candidate for re release. I could see this on Vinegar Syndrome or Scream Factory or any of those boutique labels, and people would buy it, no questions asked. There are people that just buy them just because they don't even know what it is.

They're just buying it because it's the new thing coming out and they want to have the newest, hottest screen factory thing that they've never heard of. And this would be right up there in that camp of something you may have never heard of that will floor you, shock you, and will entertain you in a way that a lot of a lot of current media doesn't. Yeah, and I think this film does have a lot will following. I mean there, it may be a smaller following, but nonetheless, people who have seen it are it does have its fan base. There are a lot of people who are friends of mine on social media who love this film, who saw it when it came out and just or have caught it over the years like that you did.

And so there there, it does have its fans, and so it would be nice to see it with maybe paired with that great making of documentary I just talked about. If anybody's interested, Like I said, that's up on YouTube for free. I'm gonna link it in the description of the show because it deserves to be Why watch I mean again, like stuff like that, in my opinion, shows the dedication to something like this, to a project that you love, is going out of your way to go. I'm going to track people down and I want to know where you are, what you're doing, and how this affected you and what's been going on with you since this came out, because again, like the only people that are going to do that clearly are the people who like this and care, because nobody else is putting in the effort, and that feels like us doing somebody else's job for them.

Yeah. Yeah, I was delighted to see it when I found out it was that it was happening, and because I posted something about the Other on social media that and guy who did it, he saw my post and we weren't friends at that time, but we connected since then, and I think I might have done a whole bit on the death anniversary of Tom Tryon. I think maybe that's what it was. And he chimed in and he said, all, I'm working on a documentary of the Other about the making up the Other nothing whoa, Okay, let's talk about this. So yeah, that was it was.

It was obviously a labor of love and he worked really hard. So anybody who's a fan of the Others seeing this film, you definitely need to check it out. It's, like I said, a video essay and it runs almost as long as the film got ninety minutes, so it's very very good. We will talk right quick before we wrap this up if you want to about the alternate ending, because this film did have an alternate ending, which which doesn't sound as good. Yeah, I don't, I did not.

I don't recall this actually, even though I saw it on CBS in the seventies. Apparently there's a voiceover after they show his face in the window and he says, Holland, the game's over. We can't play the game anymore. But when the sheriff comes, I'll ask him if we can play it in our new home, which I guess is And it was dubbed by a different child than you know, Martin or Chris Hardbernarky whoever may have been playing the part in that scene. There's a different child actor who But you know, it was standards and practices on television, and so they were, I guess, trying to imply that he had not gotten away with murder after all.

So you know, that kind of takes the edge off of the film. The original ending of the film is much more effective because you it looks like he did get away with it, and he's going to continue getting away with it, and that's where the menace lies in this film. That's where the true horror flies. That that's the scarier ending, right, either has sacrificed her life for nothing, which I love that. I love how nihilistic the ending of the movie is.

And you know, it's funny because changing the ending it feels like something that almost had to happen for TV. And I you know, I can't believe this was on TV. A baby getting drowned in a barrel of wine. A lot of the things in this movie are shocking that it was in it was being played on over the air television. My god, Like, yeah, something like this would have people up in arms today if it were shown on you know, NBC Movie of the Night, Like can you like, you know, it's just it's a different time.

But then you have an alternate ending like that neuters the movie by sewing closer to the book clearly, right, because I mean the implication is he's going away wherever he's going, and what fun is that? I mean, yeah, maybe that's the happy ending, but that's not the real ending here. That's not how this works in real life. Because people get away with terrible stuff all the time. It has nothing to do with them.

Astro projecting their dead brother. So maybe people like a happy ending, but I'm a sucker for just like the bleakest of bleak endings. I really am. Oh, I am too, I am too, and I in some ways, I would say this film shape probably shape my sensibilities in some ways because I saw it at such a pivotal young age. This is when I was first starting to you know, see films that really influence me as a human being, and you're you're you're four, you're very formative years, or when you're in your you know, your second, third, and fourth, sixth grade years.

These these things that you see, they kind of shape who you become as as an adult in your world view to a certain degree. And I think this film and its own way, probably did I loved the darkness of the ending, and it just it resonated with me as a child. I just I thought, boy, that that was something I couldn't stop thinking about. It, could not stop thinking about it. And I'm glad that you don't remember the alternate ending because you might have seen.

I mean, theoretically, if it was on TV right like that, would it would have been an attached to it. I assume, so oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, later on, and there was a long stretch where I didn't get to see it at all because it was out of circulation, like I said, And it ran on CBS in the seventies, and then it went to syndication after that, it was a syndicated package before it was on VHS tape, and like I said, it got a belated VHS release in eighty nine as previously mentioned, but there was about a decade there from the time it left CBS to until it got a VHS release, where you just you didn't get to see it unless you were lucky and one of the stations and independent stations in your area happened to show it in syndication, which luckily one of our local stations in the town I grew up in.

They did show it one Saturday night at eleven o'clock and I was able to catch it again many years after having originally seen it. So that was the second time that I saw it. And then it came out on VHS and I had to VHS and then the DVD and then the Blue ray, which I have to this day. So so adam, final thoughts on the other I give you the floor first here about a movie that has clearly shaped who you are in a lot of ways, which I think is I mean, you know, interesting movie for that to have been. But I get it, like I do get it.

I just think it's a really effective piece of Gothic horror. I guess that's the best way to put it. It's it's just so the spill and it wants. The way it works, it's magic by lulling you into a sense of complacency and then, as I said earlier, puts layer of menace upon menace until it reaches its ultimate conclusion, which is by that time at a fever pitch. It's just an amazing the way it's orchestrated, almost like a good, good symphony, I would say.

And so I think that performances are really effective, and it's so tightly scripted, and like I said, extremely well scored and well photographed, and just I just I can't say enough good things about the film I have to say. And you know I'm gonna echo everything you said. You know, I always am really excited and humbled when someone comes to me and says, you know, I want to I want you to watch this movie and tell me what you think, because again, like yourself, you know, as someone who loves movies, as someone who loves food and other things. I'm always worried when I suggest to someone, Oh, I love this restaurant, you should go check it out. I love this movie, you should check it out.

And it's like, hey, I didn't like that. It's like, oh, yeah, yeah, I didn't either. I was just curious what you thought, like I wouldn't do that. But you get what I mean. It's like, you know, you're you're putting yourself out there anytime you suggest something to someone, Oh, of course, and it's and it's a little piece of you that you're kind of trying to share with them or tell them about.

And you know, I appreciate that you brought this movie to me and wanted to have a conversation about it, because again, like you've said, and I'll echo everything you said, this is a movie that deserves a hell of a lot of a reappraisal by so many people. There are so many people right now that would be super into this movie. It is so much in the vein of other things that are coming out right now, other things that have come out in the last couple of years, and it's a shame because we, like we talked about, there are bigger forces at play here stopping it from going into that next step of a legacy title that shows up in boutique labels. There's a lot of things stopping that, and things that none of us will ever be able to control.

And realistically, I think we could pull both, probably agree may never happen, because again, those forces at play are much bigger and interested with much more money making opportunities than this. That all aside, you can find this movie on the internet. You should find this movie on the internet. If you like it a lot, go and buy the Blue. But this is a movie that can be found on the internet, and you should check it out and then share with everybody else, you know, because that's the only way that this is going to get any sort of reappraisal by anybody.

Mainstream is a ground swell of people, and like you said, there's a fan base, however big, however small. A lot of movies from seventy two nobody even talks about now, But we're talking about this and that's important, And like you've said, everybody's head was in the right place. I think everything about this movie when it sings, It really sings, and by the end of it you are left emotionally drained wondering what did I just watch? So can't thank you enough, Adam. This was This was a real treat of a movie to watch.

And yet a movie where a child gets drowned in a wide barrel shouldn't be a treat. But yet here we are. So man that poster letting it talk about the poster, My god, holy shit, man, like god, just that the look of the child screaming on the poster looking into that barrel is just you don't know what you're in for, but you know it's not going to be something pleasant. Well, I bet you could guess that I haven't original one sheet of that, and I hope so I do have it. And not only that I have, there's a B style French one sheet of that that I have as well, and it's awesome because it has one of the it has a hand, and it has the worst The other of course, at the bottom end, has a hand and one of the fingers, the ring finger is missing on the hand and a place where the missing ring finger is you see somebody falling, as if somebody's falling onto a pitchfork or something.

So it's it's a be style. You'll have to look it up. My description is probably not. But for years I imagined that I had just seen that post. I thought, I think because we used to get these sixteen millimeter film catalogs in the days before video stores.

The only way you could watch a movie at home on your own time was to rent a sixteen millimeter film, and they had these catalogs. And if you have, if you were lucky enough to have a projector in the home, you could rint these these films and then ship them out to union have them for the weekend, and then you ship them back. And so the other was one of the films and one of these catalogs, and I we didn't have a projector or sixteen millimeter projector, but we did I did have access to one of the catalogs, and so I remembered seeing this ad for the other in there with a missing finger, and I thought I must have imagined that. And years later I found the Bea style poster and I thought, nope, nope, I remembered it correctly.

I have to look that up, because I mean the base a A Style poster is just it's haunting. And if you and again, if you don't know what it's in reference to, it's haunting. And then if you know what it's in reference to you once you watched the movie, it's even worse. So campaign yeah, it's no again, Adam, thank you so much. This, this has been a real movie that I you know, again, when when my wife sat down with me and watched the last fifteen minutes, even she was Florida, and I had to tell her like I set up what was going on, and I said, this is where we are in the movie, and even she looked at me at the end of it, she was like, what the fuck are you watching?

So that for me is that's a success because a movie from seventy two can floor you the way it did when it came out, and possibly even more so because again expectations are a movie in seventy two is not going to hit like this. It's just I can't help but thank you, so thank you so much, Adam for bringing this movie to the show. Because again, like it's I'm with you, this needs more, This needs something like it just don't don't let this be it for this movie, don't let it be one hundred dollars Blu Ray that you got to go buy from somebody on even because that sucks, that really sucks. So well, that's true, and I'm so delighted to hear that you liked it. And if you hadn't, it would have been okay.

I would have been fine with that, because you know, it's it's it's you know, different strokes for different folks. But it's always good to hear that somebody gets on the wavelength of something that's meant so much to me over the years, and and anybody that knows me knows how near and dear to my heart this film is. And I've tried to extol its values over the years, and so I'm glad that some people have appreciated it, maybe maybe at my urging. Hey you're urging or not, it's still worth checking out. So so Adam, when you're not here joining me talking about films that are both ones that you love and ones that I've shanghied you into talking about where can people find you?

Oh, you can find me over at the movie Geech United podcast. We do a show once a month where we cover all the Blu Ray releases of the month and Occasionally we'll do the anniversary shows that I do, or I'll recruit cast members or behind the scenes talent from some films are important to me, and I'll try to when an anniversary's coming up, I'll try to get those people together and have them share some of their remembrances. And you can find me on the social media outlets Twitter and Facebook all that stuff too, And of course I do a daily death obituary commember. I guess you would call it a remembrance. People think it's a little morbid.

Maybe I don't know, but what I do is I will post daily somebody who passed away on this and it's not for morbid reasons. A lot of people think that that's probably why. But the reason I do it is there are a lot of people in my circle who knew some of these people when they were alive, and they have personal memories that they will share when they see that it's the day of this person's passing. So I will do that on a daily basis. Some people enjoy that sort of thing, so you can find those there too, so I am one of them.

I appreciate any time that you're highlighting people that again, like like you've said. I mean, it's it's not morbid. These people worked their entire lives in this industry and they deserve to have a remembrance, even if it is just for one day, so you know. And and with actors like Chris and martineu Vernarchy like they what spotlight are they getting shined on them? So you know, it's like anything else people who work in this industry.

If you're not working right now, everybody forgot that you existed, I guess unless you pick up one of the movies and watch them. So I always appreciate that there are people out there, like yourself who are committed to the craft of keeping film history alive, and especially you know, the unsung character actors, which it's mostly character actors it would see. So yeah, yeah, there's a lot of that for sure. Yeah. As for me, you can find me at weirdingwaymedia dot com.

Along with this show and so many other shows like Mike White's The Projection Booth, The Gentleman Who Brought Adam and I Together, Father Malone's narrative based astounding Tales of the Public Domain, and Hey, let's plug a show that doesn't get pluged very often, let's talk about Goodnight Mister Walters the Taxi Podcast, because hey, if you don't know what Taxi is, you should because well, Danny Devino is still working so and so is John Hirsh. For that matter, that man is currently nominated for an Oscar and those two men had a big role to play in that show. So that's definitely a podcast with checking out. As for this show, culturecast, dot Com, Patreon, all those places you can go to support us, but like rate and review on iTunes, that is what you can do to help us out without a single time being spent.

Adam, thank you so much for joining me. It is a pleasure. As always, Yes, I totally enjoyed it. This was a lively conversation that I had a lot of fun. I'm glad to hear it, and as always, will catch you on the next episode.

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