The Execution of Private Slovik (1974)

Welcome to the Shabby Detective, yet another Colombo podcast. I'm your host Mike White. Joining me, of course, is mister Chris Tashu. Might you say Detroit's own Mike White for this specifically special bonus episode. Yeah, a lot of Michigan in this episode, that's for sure.

We are talking about not Colombo, but the execution of Private Slovak. We were talking about the nineteen seventy four TV movie that was directed by Lamont Johnson, written by Richard Levinson and William Link, and based upon the by William Bradford Hewle, all about Private Slovak Eddie Slovak, who comes from the main streets of Detroit, born in nineteen twenty and executed by the United States Army January thirty first, nineteen forty five. There were over twenty one thousand American soldiers who were given various sentences for desertion during World War Two, including forty nine death sentences, and Slovak was the only one who actually was killed by the United States. Chris, what did you think of the execution of Private Slovak?

My god, the US government hates Polish people. Huh did they sure do? That was the joke that I kept making throughout the entirety of the movie because I watched the movie with a friend of mine, her and I watched it with my folks, and we were enthralled through almost the movie because obviously the framing device with which the story is told, I think is what the ultimate success of the movie is. It made me feel like Goodfellas a little bit or maybe a little Rachaman in the way the story was being told. It's a real bummer of a story.

You know where it's going based on the title and the way that it's told. It is en media res. But then we kind of get the jump back to the and this is how he got here. I haven't seen Martin Sheen and a whole lot of stuff if you could see right now, but you can't. My background is Martin Sheen from yet another movie that he's rather well known for that also has to do with the military.

Apocalypse Now. I haven't seen Apocalypse Now in a very long time. I will just come out and say it, I haven't seen it, probably properly as an adult, or at least a person doing this now as opposed to just someone who watched movies all the time. And just enjoyed them and could turn his brain off at one point. I haven't seen Martin Sheen and a lot of stuff, so he's really good here.

I think that this is actually a really interesting movie that opened up a lot of avenues for discussion that maybe don't have much to say about the movie itself. The movie itself is rather well made. It's a TV movie ostensibly, but it doesn't really feel like one. It really has a lot of high production value. It has a fair amount of well known actors Martin Sheen, Gary Busey, Charlie Sheen for a moment for no reason other than because he's Martin Sheen's son.

I enjoyed it. Again. It leaves you some things to chew on. But I don't think. I don't know.

I think if you know this story, this might not necessarily be the most entertaining thing on the planet. But I think the way that the story is told may make up for your and I'm not saying you specifically, but you the listener, your exposure to this story, which as someone who grew up in the nineties, I was not imminently aware of this story. Okay, you're shaking your head. No, I didn't know if this was like a thing that people knew about. My folks had seen this movie before, both of them had.

My folks are a little bit older than you are, Mike, but my folks had both seen this movie. Because when I put it on, my dad was like, why do you have to watch this? Right? I was like, what's elevenson link thing for Columbu And he's I've seen this before. And then about halfway into it, my mom was also like, I've also seen this before.

So there was a time and a place where this was the thing that people knew. Now not so much, but all of the long answer to the short question, I enjoyed it immensely, And I feel really bad for Eddie Sloviac because it feels like the US government, just as they like to do, tend to make a mess of things and what's the term fuck around and find out, oh, we didn't actually think he would get killed if we passed the sentence. What the flying fuck? Okay? All right?

Sure, great, that's bureaucracy at work, folks, to test us, tempt us to do it, you did it, okay, And it seems to be the fucking response, what about you? Mike? I know, I know, you're maybe not as high on this movie as I am. I like the movie. I didn't love the movie, but I liked the movie.

And I will say right out I had never seen it before. I had never heard of it before, hadn't heard of Private Slovak before. I'm more familiar with even like other people that were killed during World War two or right before World War Two, with the Rosenbergs, right. Oh, yeah, yeah, the two that were like essentially were they or won't they spies for the Germans? Right?

Yes, I was more familiar with the Rosenbergs than I was with Slovak. I was more familiar with the kidnapping of the Lindbergh baby than I was with Private Slovak. I guess it's probably because it's such a shameful part of American history, or at least people should be ashamed of it. But it could be, yes, exactly. This felt like an episode of Mash at times to me, because of the idea of the incompetence of the army, somebody getting railroaded.

It feels like this could have been the start of a story for a Mash episode. But yeah, to your point, I really liked this structure as well. I really like that. We start in the present. We've got ned Baty as this priest, and people are talking about how is this going to go?

They've got the dummy and they're pointing at where the heart is. Most people think it's here, but it's actually down there. And should we put a piece of paper on here and draw a target on it because we need to practice shooting one of our own soldiers? Really morbid? And then yeah, we step back in time and start to follow who is Eddie Slovic?

Who was this person? How did he get here? And then we get all of these voiceovers from the people that knew him, even very briefly, Like we get that oh gosh, I'm trying to think, like the Charles Chades scene. I was like, oh cool, Charles, Hey, this is great. I love him.

I've talked about him when we talked about Bartie Miller he was in that pilot episode, talked about him when we did Night Breed on the Projection Booth and Altered States Hill Street Blues. And he's in here for what five minutes if that? There's more Gary Busey in this, yeah, which isn't even that much. Gary Busey, But yeah, it doesn't feel like a TV film. It didn't really catch a lot of fade outs.

It didn't feel and here's the time for the commercials, which is that's the dead ringer for a TV movie. But it felt very professional. Lama Johnson I thought directed it very well, And yeah, Levinson and Link just did a hell of a job when it came to the adaptation and the structure of the story. And then it's you mentioned apocalypse Now, and I kept thinking of Apocalypse Now through the whole thing, because Eddie Slovak also has a voice in this movie, and that's through his letters home to his wife and. At the end as well, right there at the end, there's the moment where we can hear him while he's on the execution stage.

We can hear him and we shouldn't be able to. So that's like the only other moment, a singular moment in the movie where we hear him, which is very specifically done. I feel like, yeah. And every time he would start to speak in the movie via voiceover, I just kept thinking, Saigon, shit, I can't believe I'm still inside the entire movie. I just kept thinking about that every day he sits in the hotel room and Charlie's out in the bush.

Charlie gets stronger, and yeah, it's amazing to think Martin Sheen looks like a little kid in this movie. And granted he still looks very young in Apocalypse Now, but five years makes one hell of a difference. And I know it wasn't even five years because it took so long to put together Apocalypse Now. He probably started on this three years, maybe four years after Slovak. So yeah, amazing that he was able to give these two very different performances.

If anything, he reminds me a little bit more of the character that he played in bad Lands in this movie, though not nearly as well. I think that character liked to think that he was very slick, but just that kind of like slightly under educated, like Sloviac was in prison several times and in reform school. He just led quite a life of not doing very well. And it felt like he was turning things around for himself with his wife and everything and his child, and then boom it, the army pulls him in. Shouldn't have even done that, should not have brought him over and put him in the army at all and then yeah, here they are and they put him in this war and he doesn't want to be there.

And I didn't realize how many people had defected or what's the word I'm looking for, deserted, deserted. I didn't realize it would be a lot harder, all right, yes, but yeah, no, he I didn't realize just how many people their work sounds like fifty people that were sentenced to death. He's the one example, and that they do it like I don't remember when V Day was because it's basically the war was winding up in the European theater. They didn't need to do this. Yeah.

That was the thing my esteemed father and I were talking about after the movie was why did they do this so late? They should have executed somebody like day one for desertion, or like day two, like because we all know that there were plenty of people. The number is forty nine people that were given the death penalty after deserting, but you already said the original number. It was one point seven million court martials during World War two. One point seven that's a lot to be the one in the one point seven million, the one guy.

It feels a little bit much. I was curious of this because this was something else I picked up on while I was watching it. Is he meant to be a little slow. It sure feels like thank you, because I was like, because I did a fair amount of research into this, and it didn't seem like that was the case with the real person. Again, he seemed like a ding dong maybe stealing stuff, but okay, it didn't.

It makes his story even more kind of tragic that this guy may have been suffering from mental health problems, because then it's oh good, the US government put a mentally ill person to death too, because here's the thing. You're allowed to be a conscientious objector. Oh yeah, I saw Hacksaw Ridge. Actually I didn't, but yeah, you are. As a mel Gibson movie.

It's a reason you didn't see it. You're right, I like Andrew Garfield, but I wasn't about to give mel Gibson. I mean my money, and I'm a bitch and heat I at least look like a bitch and heat. I won't see it. That's right, sugar tits.

He looks like a bitch and heat. Forgive mel Gibson. We know he's a vera lent racist, anti semit. But it's time to forgive him. It's true, it would be much cooler if he was a yo Semite as opposed to an anti Semite.

You know what, maybe he'll be the ambassador to Australia. Now, yeah, at this point, who fucking cares? Yeah, let's throw it all into the fire walk this world, hey man. And that's the thing that's the hard thing with this movie for me is given. And again, like wherever you fall on the political divide, I don't frankly fucking care because I've never liked the US government either.

I don't. I've never liked the US government because the US government has a lot of problems and the US government has not owned up to a lot of stuff. Operation paper Clip never really owned up to that, the internment of Japanese and German people during World War Two, still never really owned up to that equipping. So whoa, that's all just critical race theory. And when we talk about critical race there do we talk about people being critical of the United States?

Come on, how dare I? And then you have something like this where twenty one thousand American soldiers were given sentences for desertion, but only one guy gets killed. I get the idea of the one example that needs to be made, but I'm not going to say somebody else, but like, why this guy I don't so arbitrary? Well, again, if you believe the story the way it's presented and the story the way it's written, he could have gone and just committed a crime and been thrown back in jail. And I think to myself, like, why the fuck didn't you do that?

I just don't get it. It made no sense to me if I'm him, if I'm in his position, and I know that I can't bring myself to do this for whatever reason, why not just go commit a crime and get thrown in prison. Your wife is not going to get the money if you desert anyways. So I just I that's what I didn't understand. That was where the disconnect was.

And I'm not looking for an answer from a film from seventy four. But I think for me, I'm a little disappointed maybe that they couldn't really explain to me why he didn't just commit a crime. And they do hang a lantern Nott. They're like, well, you could have gone, and dunn In's give me a reason why he wouldn't like unless it is just the scene at the beginning of the movie. And again, this is just the movie I'm talking about, not real life where it's meant to call back to the scene where the guy at the prison is like, don't come back now, like really internalized it that much that you'd be willing to go to the military, like fuck that you don't want to be part of the oil in the machine because shit, nobody cares about the oil is you know, expendable.

Clearly it's added constantly. That's the problem. Yeah, exactly. That is the question throughout so much of this Why now, Why are you standing up for what you believe in? Right now?

Why are you taking this hard way out when and you could have taken so many easier ways. You could have literally deserted. When he comes back to his unit, it's okay, I'm back, but I don't want to fight. It could have been a conscientious objector stance. He could have said, I don't want to fight because my religion prevents it, or I just can have fire against another human being or something like that.

But instead it's just no, if you're gonna make me fight him, desert again. And they're like, well, all right, now you're arrested. It's like here, I'm arrested. Yeah, you're arrested. Yeah, I don't get it.

And what I don't get to your point is, obviously, again the odds were in his favor until they weren't. If you use the numbers that we were just discussing, twenty one thousand for desertion, motherfucker is the wan. Those are real bad odds. Those you are pulling the best, worst card out of a deck of cards. I don't know how else to explain it.

It's just it's such terrible luck to be the one guy they want to make an example of. But it does seem so fucking arbitrary. They have a character in the movie bring it up, and again I can't help but wonder how much of this is the case. He's a convicted criminal, right, and as Chris Nolan's The Dark Knight would show us, all criminals are people too. That's why they didn't blow them up on the boat at the end of the movie.

Remember I do remember that just this movie and that movie were the same, very similar. I think Tiny Lister was on that boat, so I didn't want to see that boat get blown. Up, tiny lister. Get it, he's not small, he's a big guy. He's very big guy, was a very big guy.

Rip tiny lister, zeus us Do you love that guy? Man? He should have been Eddie Slope. Oh wow, that would have been brought in. That would have been.

Racism, but just racism as it is. But more to your point, the way that the portray this character, the way that you hear because I kept talking about the letters, the way through the way he reads the letters. Yeah, and then you can even see some of the letters being quoted out on Wikipedia, and you just see I understand not knowing how to spell certain the French city that you were in. Okay, And there's certain other spellings that he does where I'm just like, yeah, okay, that's a common one or whatever. But there are others where I'm just like, yeah, he doesn't seem like he's Wait, and then you had to hear him read those letters in that very halting, stilted, almost forced Gump esque way of speaking.

I'm like, oh, okay, yeah, he does seem like he's not quite one hundred percent. It feels like he he was in the school of hard knocks for his entire life feels like he starts to get his life together even though he is special, and then this happens and he doesn't know how to handle it. Is it weird that he calls his wife mommy? That is weird? Is that where that also does it for me?

Mama? Now I know? And maybe a codependency thing. I don't know. Yeah, it would make sense once she gets pregnant that he would call her mommy to be like getting her used to it, or he isn't this cool that you're pregnant thing?

But yeah, I think he does that before that, and. Again to the point of he's maybe again not all there right would track with the character, And again I didn't see anywhere that was the case with the real person, And maybe it was. Again I've got to wonder about the mental stability of someone who's willing to do what he did. But again, he was playing the odds in a ninety nine point ninety nine repeating percent chance of not being the guy they made the example of, literally like the odds were against him in the worst possible time. I don't know if you've ever seeing Paths of Glory, the Kubrick film, this reminded me a lot of that as well, because with that one, it's three soldiers that they make an example out of for not doing what they're supposed to do.

They're basically in a complete no win situation. And I want to say, it's been a long time since I've seen it, but I want to say they were almost drawn by lots as far as oh yeah, these three guys are the ones that need to take the fall for retreating when they shouldn't have. And I want to say George McCready as the general who had ordered them out there, he's always great and he's got that in real life. He had an amazing scar in his face, so he just looks perfect in that. And then it's Kirk Douglas.

That's the first time Douglas and Kubrick worked together, and him trying to defend these guys and to see them in that death row situation and start to just break down. It's just amazing performances from like Joe Turkell and from Timothy Carey, and I can't remember the other gentlemen because it's the three soldiers and you see those emotions and then you see Slovak here and it's just like, oh, they're going to kill you signing, it's just like, oh uh huh. And he's just so doesn't seem to realize the gravity of a situation, even when he's standing there in front of the fucking firing squad. They said that he was competent and able to stand trial. I have a hard time believing that.

Same Again, they show it in the movie where he's just I'm not tempting them to do it, biz, because again the assumption is you're just gonna get the equivalent of a slap on the wrist. Really, he'd already been in prison before he knows what it's like. That's a cake walk for him out there in Michigan. Yeah, the Michigan prison's pretty tough. Yeah, I'm surprised you never heard of this growing up in Detroit.

I am too. That one reason I'm surprised you haven't heard of this is the Detroit connection. Yeah, and it makes sense when they're talking about like the Polish people and everything. There's such a major Polish population and it's not just ham Trammack. People should see how that is spelled, and you'd be like, what, how do you get ham Trammick out of that it's it's a major.

Polish ham traffic was also like Middle Eastern folk. Now it is, Yes, okay, that's what I saw it. Yes, And that's there's a real controversy right now because the I think it's the mayor or the city council voted to ban pride flags. Really bad look for them. Deerborn seems to be even more tolerant of gay people than ham Trammick is.

But you also had a lot of Polish people living down river, which is where I'm from. All the people that my dad worked for when I was younger, my stepdad, I should say, like they were the these three Polish guys that ran this scrapyard and stuff and so many just like Polish culture was everywhere, Like we had these huge events at the yost Ice Arena and yeah they had different festivals, Italian Festival, all these different things, but the Polish one was like the event. And you would not believe how many bowling alleys there are downriver. I would yes, Polish people love bowling. They do.

I would say it's a stereotype, but it seems to be true. I have the Italian thing. The Polish thing seems to be from your neck of the woods, but like where I grew up, there was none, none of that. But in Chicago and stuff like that, or like you've set up in Michigan, like big Midwestern towns with big ethnic populations of you know, essensibly white people, like ethnic white people, the kinds of people that people were racist against in this country originally before they became also part of the racist groups. I don't know yet.

It's weird that this isn't talked about more. But at the same time, like you alluded to earlier, the US government ain't exactly hot to trot about showing all the ways it's fucked up. And the thing that really bums me out is his wife tried to get him pardoned seven times. Oh yeah, oh Jimmy Carter. Really come on now, like Jimmy Carter of all people, Like, that's surprising to me, it is.

And there's that moment I want to say, it's about halfway through the film where he leaves and she goes and that was the last time I ever saw him, I should say, And. Then the last time I heard anything about him for eight years. Yeah, yeah, just wild fucked. This story is really fucked, because sometimes life is not fair, and sometimes life is insanely unfair, overwhelmingly unfair. This is that this is one of those moments where, dude, if there are some people who luck breaks in their favor constantly, there have to be people where luck breaks away.

And this guy is just like the worst. The reclassification is bad enough as it is, but then the fact that he goes to war and he gets fucking shot by the US government, My god, And Martin Sheen is so sympathetic in the film, like as I don't know. Martin Sheen is an actor who, like I alluded to at the beginning, I haven't seen him in enough things other than Now this in Apocalypse Now and I guess that depoded. I haven't seen Wall Street, ma'am. I guess that.

Yeah, I guess that's the other one. But I haven't seen Wall Street in a really long time. Like that is a movie I really want to rewatch because I remember enjoying it a fair amount. I remember thinking it's one of those movies that if you were to ask me fifteen years ago, I would say it's one of my favorite movies because it's like the snappy dialogue the Kirk Douglas of it all. Now we're essentially just living in the movie as if we weren't to begin with.

Yeah, No, I guess when I think of Wall Street, I don't think of Martin Sheen, Let's put it that way. I think of Charlie and Michael Douglas. But Martin she he's great here. He's so sympathetic and it's again, it does verge on kind of simpleton man, but I think he pulls it off spectacularly. Frankly.

Yeah, that appearance in Wall Street is what leads to one of the best moments of Hot Shots, Part Due when you've got Charlie Sheen writing a letter and you hear his voice over and then he starts to get overshadowed by his dad's voiceover, and it's Willard on the boat coming one way as topper Hurley goes the other way, and they both stand up and look at you at each other and go, I love doing Wall Street. Yeah, that's that is one of my favorite jokes in that film. Good. Yeah, it was weird because we talked about Martin Sheen. He was so briefly in that one episode of Colombo where he got murdered Gang five.

You're a mile. That's right, that's the connection here. Yeah, okay. And then he was the king of TV movies for a while, like in the early seventies. He's in Letters from Three Lovers, one called Toma.

Well he's in a bad Lands which is a great movie. Police Surgeon, Oh sorry, that's a TV series. Next movie is Message to My Daughter. When the line goes no, that's not a TV movie, execution Private Slovak. The story Pretty Boy Floyd, the California kid was it?

He wasn't in Marco, was he? I don't think he was. No, he wasn't on a kite. Yeah, wouldn't that have been better? The Missiles of ak Otober, which is his first time playing at Kennedy, The Last Survivors and Sweet Hostage.

Those were all TV movies that he made between nineteen seventy three and nineteen seventy eight. Then he's making regular movies. He's also on TV appearances. He was in The Cassandra Crossing, which I recommend. He was in The Little Girl who Lives Down the Lane, which if anybody listening to this hasn't seen The Little who Lives Down the Lane, it is amazing and is basically it feels like a play and it's just him and Jody Foster and like a couple side characters, but it is just so much him and Jody Foster, and he plays the creapiest creep, like he would make Matt Gates go, WHOA, you get better?

Back off, dudeh alleged allegedly, this is it alleged. Later onnor you know, thinking about Martin Sheen and then Charlie Sheen, who's also in this movie briefly, like not blanket. You'll miss it because the camera follows him, So please get your child off screen. God, damn, I you know, I can't think of other than maybe the Douglas family, the these like mole tie generational families. They're the big ones, right in terms of male families at least.

Yeah, I guess the Baldwins, and then yeah, the Douglases, and then these guys, the kings and queens of it. For me will always be the Barry Morris, just because they were actors before movies even began, and we still are dealing with the Barry Morris, damn dealing with I love some of the Barry Moores, and I actually really drew quite a bad I wish she was in more movies rather than doing that insipid TV show. They say, you can't make money choice, and you can't make a shitload of money making movies anymore, but you can make a shitload of money with TV deals and treaty sales of products and advertising. And hey, that show looks like it's always at least crowded with people cheering and yelling. And Drew Barrymore is you know she's amiable enough?

I feel like I don't know. Yeah, I wish she was in more things. I guess I don't know. Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez and Martin Sheen. Martin Sheen played a pretty convincing president there for a while.

Oh yeah, Charlie Sheen, I think pretty great actor. His kind of meltdown personally aside, I think Charlie Sheen's a pretty great actor. He actually has a pretty wide range as an actor too. Genuinely, this is not me blowing smoke. I know you feel the same way.

Yes, even if he is winning with Tiger Blood so hard that winning Damn that shit was wild though, I will tell you that much. And then Emilia Westavez, I never resonated with Mighty Ducks, and that was my frame of reference for him early on. But then Repoman obviously is a real that's a real classic. At least for me, that's one that I really resonate with as an adult. I think there are three solid across the board actors, and it comes from looking at something like this with Martin Sheen, who harrries this entire movie on his back.

Really, even when he's not on screen, he makes a huge impact because he's the focus of the whole thing. I can't believe you haven't talked about Joe Esteves, his brother. It was one of those guys who would show up in the I'm the brother of the famous person type things, like a Frank Saloon type of back. Yeah, the trash can. How are you saying?

I love that song Frank's. He's amazing one that he did for Staying Alive. That's a great song. But yeah, yeah, Frank stallone, Yeahrank Stone, my brother's famous. We know.

So yeah. Like for a while they were in the eighties and nineties, especially because that's the era I remember the most, Like they would have things where it's like Sheen and Sweezy and then it's Martin Sheen's brother, and Patrick Sweezey's brother, Oh boy, and Billy Baldwin. Yes, the worst of the Baldwin. I don't know, Stephen might be worse. Is Stephen Baldwin.

Stephen Baldwin. I think he's mega. I think they're gonna say Biodome. No, No you did. Biodome is a classic.

Don't cap on Biodome? What about it? No, he wasn't in Encino Man. That's Pauli Shore who. Was in Yeah, that was Pauli Shore.

That was Sean Aston and Brendan Fraser of course as the titular Encino man from Encino. Yes, and that was where you got to see not Sean Asten is not a piece of shit, but his character was a complete piece of shit. He can't what a weird movie again? Lord? Yeah, that's why I went back to the thing with Charlie Sheen and like the range because you mentioned the hot Shots stuff, which Martin Sheen is in, and that's that's a funny scene that works because the two of them.

I don't really consider Martin Sheen a comedic actor. He's a serious actor. Right. Charlie Sheen has more range than his dad, I feel like, but I think Martin Sheen is a better actor oh overall. But I think Charlie Sheen has more rage because Charlie Sheen his meltdown aside, he literally was carrying a sitcom for years, a sitcom that continued not as long after he was off of it as it did before, and him being a personality is the reason he got into the whole winning Tiger's Blood thing.

But Charlie Sheen is a really good actor and a really funny actor. But I think his dad is just a really good actor, and something like this kind of shows proves that out. I feel like I seem to remember him being very funny when he was on SNL way back in the fucking seventies. I remember him spitting into I think it was Jane Curtain's hair. She's like, how do I get my hair so nice?

I use Martin Sheen and he just keeps spitting. Jesus, that's fucking disgusted, But it was pretty funny, that is. Yeah. When I think of Martin Sheen, I definitely think of his more serious roles, even when he's unhinged and things like a firestarter or I really liked him in the Final Countdown. But I love him and the Dead Zone, and that's at the end of that movie when he's holding that little kid as a fucking human shield.

I'm like, oh man, But those. Moments where he's being super creepy and he's the missiles are on the way hallelu Yeah, I'm like, oh man. He plays a great presidential figure, even when he's completely on the hinge, like Greg Stilson. Right after he does The Dead Zone, he's in Kennedy the mini series where he's playing John F. Kennedy like him.

His relationship with the on screen Kennedy's and then even president that he played in The West Wing, I think is very Kennedy esque. Yeah, I would agree. Did you remember he was in the fucking Amazing Spider Man movie? He was Ben Parker. Oh wow, yeah, I forgot about that.

So wild. He's had a really strange, like late in life career. I feel like, I don't know again. The one thing that I saw him in a lot in my teen years was The Departed because I enjoyed that movie. I'd say, spawn, oh, spawn, for all the wrong reasons.

Now, it was The Departed because I really liked the departed back in the day, not so much Tobe. Yeah, yeah, it's not what I go back to. I would probably go back to Infernal Affairs before I went back to the Departed. That's the problem with the Departed is I've seen Infernal Affairs like now and yeah, I'm with you. Yeah, that's the thing with Martin Sheen.

For the most part, outside of the Departed recent stuff, I really haven't seen anything more recent than that. Yeah, but he's great here. And then you have Gary Busey being really understated, which buttered sausages guys rarely understated. The supporting cast for this. I already mentioned that Beattie, you mentioned Gary Busey, I mentioned Charles Hayde.

But even Matt Clark, who always turns into great performance. He's one of these who's that guy? I've seen him so many times before, like even me the king of the that guy kind of thing. I'm like, good's that Matt Clark? I think that, and he always turns into super solid performance.

Yeah. I thought that all of the folks that were in this were just really good. And I especially think that what's his wist's name, Marie clear Costello. I guess I need to get my glasses checked here. She was really solid.

I thought that she was great, and she has probably one of the worst roles that you can have, which is the almost to be grieving wife type of thing, and the I don't understand what's going on and the world is stombing all over me. Because she knows what's going on. She's not slow like Eddie is. She can see what's happening, and it's awful. I was gonna say, I think my favorite performance in the movie outside of the ones you mentioned is John Cedar as the guy who's at the table keeps counting the votes over it, over again, and it's like the fucking scene from Doctor Strangers.

Let's run this around the table again. Are we all so? And let's run this around the table again. Wait a second, but you're unanimous in the vote, my friend. That's the thing that they leave just unmentioned.

And I don't know. They don't hang a lantern on it. They just have you go down and you see him handing him the piece of paper that he's also written on. But I like that where he's maybe try this again, maybe we'll have a different outcome. It's there's not going to be a different outcome.

They're so stubborn and there's so stuck in their way. Yeah, this is that Patrick McGowin character all over again. It's just like the US government is unwavering in its treatment of people, regardless of your situation, and it's wait a second, that's not how this should work. This poor guy. If they actually looked at his situation as anything other than a former criminal in the getting, you know, conscripted into the military and drafted because loll, we need more people to churn into the machine, they would have actually done something about.

But that scene where his wife is at the office is just so fucking heartbreaking. But she's what am I gonna do? And you're gonna have to go live in a one row apartment or go live with your family. Times are sorry. It's like, good God, how uncaring and horrible, But ultimately probably the way it happened, there is something to be said for people that are bureaucratic, because there are people in this world that are willing to be unwilling.

Now I find it funny. So the book comes out in nineteen fifty five, which is ten years after Private Slovak was killed by the US government. Murdered by the US government, and James Dean was interested in being in it. This is what I'm reading anyway, James Dean was interested in it. And then interestingly for me, talking about another JFK connection, is that Frank Sinatra wanted to play the role and was actually talked out of it by JFK.

Apparently there is like that whole weird Sinatra Kennedy connection which was just so bizarre to me. I was a devil's triangle. One might say, yeah, or the Eiffel Tower perhaps yeah, But it was just because Sinatra was in that movie Suddenly where it's the guy comes into town and he's going to murder the president. They never say which president it is. He doesn't even have any political aspirations.

He's just there to be like, oh no, I'm going to get paid however, many millions of dollars to do this job. It's just me murdering someone. And then he also gets the Manchurian candidate pulled, which is all about the assassination of a president as well, and here he is possibly playing Slovak. I really think that it wouldn't have worked in the fifties for James Dean it wouldn't have worked in the sixties for Frank Sinatra. I really think that this coming out in nineteen seventy four, hot on the heels of Watergate, there is so much reevaluation of what was going on in the political environment that this was the perfect time for this movie to come out.

I'm just surprised it didn't come out theatriclate, But the movies were really pushing the envelope way more than people thinked. Our good friend Amanda Rey is her whole thing of studying these TV movies and writing about them. It's invaluable because we get to see with fresh eyes, like what was happening in our culture. This is coming directly into our living rooms. To have that little disclaimer at the beginning, where it's let me read it exactly what they say, We suggest you consider whether the program should be viewed by young people or others in your family who might be disturbed by it.

Yeah. I was disturbed. Yeah, it's a disturbing story. And at the end, when he's leading for his life, it's awful. Yeah, everything about this movie is really awful, And I honestly think that this is a movie that should still be shown in fucking world history classes, or at least US history classes, because this, Look, here's the thing you already mentioned, is this comes out in seventy four.

It's coming out, but Vietnam, Vietnam is still in everybody's minds. I'm thinking of this in terms of the Vietnam War. And again we talk about the idea of conscientious objectors, but we also talk about the idea of people who are just getting pulled into a conflict they have no business being a part of. And what conflict is that if not Vietnam. Yeah, for real, right, world War two at least is a justifiable conflict.

It was that there was a possibility of the end of the civilized free world as we knew it because of Hitler and his rocketeers moving across the world at a frightening pace. But I don't see this movie as a World War two thing as much as I see again and yet another piece of anti Vietnam media that would be coming out at this time anyways, because that was all the rage in the seventies was sideways, adjacent stuff about Vietnam. Oh yeah, I mentioned mash, but we already had mashed the movie by this point, and you know this aired March thirteenth, nineteen seventy four. The helicopters didn't leave Vietnam Operation Frequent Wind, which sounds like there's a pill for that. Then it took place April activated chart seventy five.

Yes, yeah, that definitely helps. Helps if you got a little pad in the gussett. Yeah. Yeah. I can't help but feel like, again, we've lost sight of so many things, unfortunately with our history in this country.

But man being critical of the US government in a genuine way is one of those things. This is a point of discussion that I think should be raised, because again, what is the US government's point in doing something like this at the point that they did it with the person that they did it to, if not to just say we did it. I don't remember exactly what it was. I believe it was something I covered with Father Malone, or we covered with Father Malone, where there was an extra segment from one of these anthologies that we watched where it was about the unknown soldier. They were essentially like picking a soldier to be the soldier in the tomb of the unknown Soldier from Vietnam World War two, and the whole shtick is You've got the guy from the Air Force, the guy from the Navy, the guy from the Army, and then some five star generals in this room, and they invite the guy in and they're making this plea for him to be the unknown soldier.

And maybe it was one of those anthology movies I watched for Father Malone's Month in twenty twenty three, but it was like, what is the fucking point. We're just right, we're antagonizing US citizens and then putting them to death. And again it's a guy that can't even barely figure his life out, like a guy who's having a hard time enough as it is. Who finally seemed to be getting his life in order now and then and when you find out that she loses the baby, Oh my god. I know it's this is just everything I'm dealing with a lot in my personal life right now.

But even I'm not dealing with this much like Jesus age Christ. Yeah yeah, fuck around and find out, unfortunately, has lots of outcomes, and one of them is fuck around with the US government and find out that the US government is as caring as they pretend to be. That is a reality that they are uncaring about the plight of the common citizen or the common soldier in the military's case. So I enjoyed it. But this is a tough watch.

But I think this really should be required viewing. If we're going to read books like the Things they carried in high school, right, which was the Vietnam book, we should be watching stuff like this in our history classes. It should be required viewing at least about World War Two, or at least about the Vietnam conflict, to use this as a bridge between the two. But yeah, instead we're just not being critical of the US government in a helpful way. But man ned Baty right there at the end, he just fucking calls him out.

You having a good time, Oh. Baby, it's well, everybody's great in this, but he is in rare form. Yeah, he's so good. And yeah, the end of this is so harrowing. I know, it's heartbreatiot Martin Sheen.

When they put the hood on him and then they kill him, it's it's awful. Again, this is a movie from seventy four, but it moved me deeply because it's so fucking upsetting. And again, it's just the way it's told the story of like when you think about somebody being executed, you don't think about all the things that go into it, the guys that have to do it, because again there's a US military on the other side of this being forced effectively to do this. None of them are enjoying it. Nobody here is having a good time at all.

And the fact that this story he focuses on those parts at times, I think is also a real testament to And this is the thing I think we haven't really even talked about a whole lot Elevenson and Link of it all, Like the story is so well done and it is Columbo esque, is it not. We know how this is going to end, Yeah, we have to see how we get there, And fucking Levinson and Link right there up front doing the same thing that they always do. It's telegraphed right there in the title. We see him effectively two minutes before he's shot at with the crawl at the beginning, So we know how this is going to play out. But man, we were joking about it.

We paused it to finish dinner the other night. We were watching it and I was like, we all know how this is going to end. Yeah, but still it's like immensely entertaining and so well done that even though the outcome is inevitable and known ahead of time, I am still beyond impressed that Levinson and link Land this so hard, but again not surprising given the Columbo of it all. It's amazing when you look at that ending and that he gets shot like around one hour fifty minutes and then he doesn't die for another three or four minutes, and just those looks of the soldiers from one to another, and they're just like, this guy is still alive, and you can hear those moans and the doctor running out there to check his heartbeat.

And you were talking about just like the preparation and that scene where the guy who can barely speak French is ordering the hood from the French seamstress. Oh my god, that was like, which is blah blah blah? The eye holes is Nope, no eye holes and just the look on her face and then the look on his face. Jesus, I know you mentioned it. The fact that this didn't get a theatrical release means Martin Sheen couldn't be nominated for an Oscar, which seems like a shame because he has never won an Oscar, and I would contend that this is the thing that should have gotten him at least a nomination, because oh, yeah, he's so fucking good in this.

I mean, I'm really impressed by how empathetic you are as an audience member for his character, because he's being played so sympathetically and it's really not trafficking too hard in the forest gump of it all, even though maybe it could have. I didn't really get that from the movie, but it verged on it at times. Yeah, it's surprising when you say that she hasn't won an Oscar because I was just like, really, even for Apocalypse Now, just because he was so fucking good in that and just even the way he is so dead pant quite a lot, but just because he shouldn't be there, America shouldn't be there, nobody should be there. Again, that's the Eddy Slovaka at all. He just shouldn't be there.

It's wild Vietnam story because it goes back to he just wasn't supposed to be here today, Like this guy was just should have been anywhere else but in the war, because that's he did everything he could to not be in the position that he was in and the inevitability of it all feels so fucking awful, doesn't it. And then again, that's the way Levinson and Link tell the story, is the inevitability of it all is, here's the train coming down the track. You're tied to the tracks, and you know the train's going to run you over, and there's nothing you can do about it. Ye, try struggle whatever you'd like, ain't gonna change anything. And that's this entire story.

It's the inevitability of this story. And just the way that he is treated and we as the audience, are treated by proxy, that's just so horrible because you see everyone that he interacts with feels for this person, even the people that vote. You don't get to see their interior monologue. Other than the one guy who let's go another vote, I'm assuming all the other people in that room, he says it had no interest in being part of what they were part of, but they did it nonetheless duty above all else. Just as a little footnote here, So I just looked up who was nominated for oscars for the fifty second Academy Awards.

Dustin Hoffman won in Kremer versus Kramer, Jack Lemon nominated for The China Syndrome, al Pacino for and Justice for All, Roy Scheiter for All That Jazz, and Peter Sellers for being There. That's a really crowded field, man. But I will say Melvin Douglas did win for being there. But Duval was nominated for his role as Kilbore, and Frederick Forrest was nominated, but not for Apocalypse Style. He was nominated for the Rose.

And then you had Justin Henry for Kramer Versus Kramer, and Mickey Rooney for The Black Stallion. These are some of these performances are just amazing, and almost all of these movies that I've made are fantastic. Yeah, but so is this movie. Yes it is. It's a kind of a shame.

It's a shame that it was not theatrically released because I think if it had been, this would be remembered as one of those seventies Vietnam War movies, and I think it honestly deserves to be reappraised that way. I think that this is I don't know, I really resonated with this movie. There's an inevitability to this story that I appreciated, because sometimes you do everything right in life. And life still fucks you. Or you could do everything wrong in life and life still fucks you.

Shit, you might do everything wrong in life and life doesn't fuck you at all. But you can do everything right in life and life still just fucks you repeatedly. And this is that story. This guy had the worst luck possible. Really, it's again.

If he hadn't been alive during a live conflict, he would have been fine. We never would have heard of him. He would have just been another human being existing on this planet for seventy average on seventy sixty five to seventy years. Would have died probably so it's twenty four when he died in forty forty five, would have died in the nineties pre nine to eleven, would have gotten to see, you know, no other major conflict like in his lifetime, like nothing other than Vietnam. But he would have been too old to be in Vietnam.

Right, Vietnam, the Wait, Iran. To No major conflicts except for all those, except for all those, but those are just proxy wars. Yeah, those are major conflicts, police actions exactly. We were just trying to stem the tide of communism. It wasn't a real war.

Come on, yes, if we call that the domino theory. Yeah, but in my mind, this guy just had the worst timing because again, it does feel like the deck is stacked against you. It's almost like one of those things where it's not just the deck is stacked against you, it's like you went and pulled a magician's deck and there's only one card in there. Yeah. Bro, that's just how can you be this unfucking lucky?

I guess somebody has to be really. This was nominated for quite a few awards, at least seven Emmys and a few the American Cinema Editors and then a Director's Guild of America. Lamont Johnson was nominated, but this only seemed to win an editing It was Frank Morris with two s's two rs. He won for the ACE and then he also won for two Emmys, one for Best Film Editing for Entertainment Programming and the other one for Film Editor of the Year, so it was recognized in some way. And Martin Sheen was nominated for an Emmy but didn't win, So it's yeah, it got some do but it's not one that I've heard of before, so I'm not blaming the world and blaming me for not having looked this up before.

But yeah, I would have liked to have had some sort of inkling that this existed. It's a story worth hearing, it's a story worth being told. It's a story that I think still resonates today, and the Levinson and Link of it all I think really helps because it is so well written. And that's because the guys behind some of the great TV shows of all times. Yeah.

I was hesitant when we not because of any specific reason, but I was like, maybe is this a little too far afield for us? But with the way the story is told, I really think Levinson and Link were uniquely qualified to tell this story. And kudos to them for making a story that has an inevitable ending so goddamn entertaining but at the same time so unbelievably just heart wrenching. Yeah, and I think that the storytelling technique that they use for the Gun is also an interesting one. It's been a long time since I've seen it, But we'll be back next month talking about that one as we continue our little break between seasons here of Color.

So if you don't want to hear that, come back in two months. Otherwise we'll be around next month. And until then, Chris, what are you working on these days? Just making podcasts and audio diversions over at Weirdywaymedia dot com, where you can find this show and all the other things that I work on, including a culturecast, Bollywood Cinema Club, a whole bunch of things, everything but ranking on bond, which can be found at your Patreon, my Patreon and that's it Patreon dot com, slash Projection Booth or slash culture Cast, and go support everybody who's on Weirdyway Media, including Father Malone at slash Fatherblone and Susan and Sharon over it to ADYCV ladies on Patreon. Yeah, that's where you can find me and all the people that I support and shout out for.

What about you, Mike, Yeah. Pretty much exactly the same thing. Other than you know, I won't mention Father Malone or Sharon and Susan forget all those people. Just me, just me, Just pay attention to me, please. Yeah, we'll be back next month.

I want to thank John Walker, who you can also pay attention two for our opening theme song, and Colin Gallagher, who wishes to remain anonymous, for our end theme song. Thank you so much for listening, everybody, and we'll be back next month with another shabby detective. Well, the wars they come, and the wars they go en. Deserters come, and deserters and the army paper works. The figure in pain, it can figure its way to pull a trigger and rhin.

Some legends are sweet, Some legends are bad. But the legend of any sings the sweet songs. They never shot a man awol since the Lincoln War till the hitler Hell, hey a hey, there pulled his cousin. They shot you down upon the ground. The musketry was.

Buzzing, Hey, private Eddie. The paperwork was ready, general like he drove the spike. That lays in his semitary. When Eddie was just a grown young lad, he done things good, and he'd done things, but. He stole some.

Money from an old drug store. Later took him to prison and shut that door. Then Eddie came out like a young lad. Should he married a girl? Thought he never cool.

Then a letter came postmarked at Eddie's door. Next thing you know, he went off to walk. Hey yslovak hey their Polish cousin. They shut you down upon the ground. The musketry was buzzing, Hey, Private Eddie.

The paperwork was ready, general, like he drove the spike. That lays in a semitary. Eddy couldn't keel and me man to it to his body on a foreign line. They told Eddy Slovak again and again to go back to his infantry fighting men. When Eddie refused, it got their goat, plus the battle of the bulge eating at their throw.

Hey, hey Slovak, Hey, their Polish cousin. They shot you down upon the ground. The musketry was buzzing, Hey, Private Eddie. The paperwork was ready. General, like he drove the spy that lays in a semitary.

There were forty nine thousand that ran our way. How come they shot just Eddie? That a how come his woman was never told by the. Way his body was buried bold, But now she lives in a Detroit town as he sleeps in a frenchman's ground. Oh era, oh area, or a simple thing, as long as I don't feel your mortals thing.

Hey, ay Slovac, Hey their Polish cousin. They shot you down upon the ground. The musketry was buzzing' hey, Private Eddy. The paperwork was ready General, he drove the spine that lays in a semetery