The Robert Duvall Hall of Fame

24:39Sean Fennessey:He has a critical Henry V, a kind of definitional for what those characters look like on movie screens. Seven Academy Award nominations over the years. He, the rare actor who had one in the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 2000s. 90 features. He also directed five films. And produced a few too. Yeah. Yeah. I, what are your thoughts on slightly widening the parameters of the Hall of Fame to include some things that are not strictly theatrically released films. Didn't you guys put Nicole Kidman limited series in her Hall of Fame? Which limited series? I candidly do not remember. It's possible. I feel like we've made some allowances.

25:30What's the one in the beach with the women, with the mystery. What am I thinking of? Big Little Lies?

25:40Sean Fennessey:Yes. Is that what it's called? Did we put Big Little Lies in? I think you did. I don't recall. We did do that? Thumbs up from Sarah and Lucas. Sure. Okay. So then the answer is yes. You feel comfortable with that idea? I'm saying that I think precedent has been established. And are you up on the blue category that there can be one film that you can choose? I think we did this for the Redford Hall of Fame, but remind me. Well, so we have Reds, Greens, and Yellows here on the Hall of Fame. Red is a film that is not in. Yellow is a film that we will hold and we will revisit and see if we should go forward or go backward and put it in red.

26:10Sean Fennessey:Green, of course, is going in. Blue indicates that it is outside of the 10 critical films that go into the Hall of Fame. But it's something that we like. It's something that we have a personal connection to that we can make a case for its relevance, its emotional importance to us. Is that different than I think this should be in the Hall of Fame and you don't? Well, let's not drill down too hard. do you want to start since we were talking about Horton Foote yeah sure I will throw in a couple of other TV things as we go that I've seen but I think we can absolutely start okay in 1962 he is cast on the recommendation of Horton Foote who wrote the screenplay adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird directed by Richard Mulligan and he plays Robert Mulligan sorry who did I say you said Richard who's Richard Mulligan I have no idea he's the star of Empty Nest he's an actor yeah he was on soap That's right.

27:01Sean Fennessey:Robert Mulligan. Yeah. And he was Boo Radley in the film. Yeah. And he has no lines of dialogue. Right. But he is a critical character. And I'm fond of including the breakthrough in the Hall of Fame. Oh, it's definitely green. I think it has to be, right? It has to be green. Critical American movie. Terrific movie. Still holds up very well. Here's the thing. It's, if it's not the great American novel, It's certainly one of the great American novels. It's a beautiful, sort of pitch-perfect rendition of the great American novel. And if he were just one of the townspeople, maybe we wouldn't make a case for Hall of Fame.

27:44But he plays a very crucial role. And he's great. I've seen To Kill a Mockingbird on stage a couple of times. Boo Radley's hard. Deceptively hard. He doesn't have any lines. He doesn't have to show up until the very end. But you got a lot of responsibility as Boo Radley. You have to convey a lot in a short amount of time with no lines. And he's great in it.

28:06Sean Fennessey:He's so haunted in this part. And I think he's never really looked that way in any other movie. He has almost like this white pallor and it's like a shock of white hair almost. He never really looked like that again. He looks like a ghost. And I think it has to go into – now if Amanda were here, she'd be like, all right. You're like shooting your load too soon. You know, you can't just pick the first one. You got 89 more movies. I think Amanda would put To Kill a Mockingbird in Robert Duvall. I don't want to misrepresent her point of view. Now, 1963, Captain Newman, MD. I haven't seen the film.

28:39I'm going to jump in here with some TV. The Untouchables, three episodes of Route 66, The Twilight Zone, The Virginians, Stoney Burke, Arrest and Trial. And he, The Twilight Zone, directed by Walter Grom and teleplayed by Charles Beaumont, who was a great sci-fi writer. And he's the lead in that Twilight Zone. I didn't get a chance to watch it. Yes, Captain Newman, MD, is the next movie. Did you watch this movie? I did. Did you? I did not. Directed by David Miller. It's David Miller's first movie after Lonely Are the Brave, which is an absolutely great movie. Yes. It's Gregory Peck's first movie after To Kill a Mockingbird.

29:14And it's Robert Duvall's first movie after To Kill a Mockingbird.

29:16Sean Fennessey:Is that how he got the gig? Did Gregory Peck? I don't know. I don't know. Nudge them on this one? He's also kind of being asked to do something very similar to Boo Radley. Uh-huh.

29:56both good actors, are asked to perform a kind of mental illness that feels very theatrical and hambone. Duvall escaped some of that because his character is suffering from PTSD or shell shock, probably they called it at the time. And so he's nonverbal. So again, it's kind of a similarity to Boo Radley. He's this nonverbal character who's come back from battle. He's good in the film. Gregory Peck is great in the film. The movie does not hold up.

30:24Sean Fennessey:Well, that sounds like a red to me. There's going to be a few spots where you're filling in my blank spots because I know you worked so avidly to prepare for this episode since this is your job. Let me throw in some more TV after this. The Lieutenant Craft Suspense Theater, three episodes of The Outer Limits, three episodes of The Fugitive, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. I did watch his Outer Limits episode called The Chameleon. Well, he did three Outer Limits episodes, but he did one called The Chameleon. Notable because teleplay by Robert Towne. Wow. Yeah. Wonderful. How was it? It's not very good.

31:03Sean Fennessey:Okay. That's the problem with doing what you've done is sometimes, you know, there's only so many 23-minute intervals in the day where you can check in on old television, and then you're a bit heartbroken when you get to the end of an episode, and you're like, well, it didn't work out. I don't know why I did that. That wasn't a good use of my time. I appreciate all of your hard work. There's a two-year gap where he films all that television, and then he appears briefly in Nightmare in the Sun as a motorcyclist. Not much to say about this. Did you watch it? I watched some of it. I watched it. Directed by Mark Lawrence, who was a bastard who sang like a bird in front of the House Un-American Activities Committee.

31:42So, to hell with him. It's very much like that. What's the Oliver Stone movie with Sean Penn where he's in the little desert town, little noir? U-Turn. U-Turn. It's basically the plot of U-Turn. John Derrick is in the Sean Penn role. Ursula Endress. Ursula Endress, who was John Derrick's wife at the time. Apparently, there was a promise made that John Derrick was going to get her naked for the movie, but that didn't wind up happening. I'm not sure why, since she certainly was not shy about taking off her clothes in the movies later on. Thanks to her for that. Duvall and Richard Jekyll show up as these motorcycle guys who are trying to capture John Derrick.

32:26But they're motorcycle guys who are both like balding, blonde-haired guys in cardigan sweaters. It's very strange. I don't know what accounts for that. And then there's a scene where Duvall whips his motorcycle with a length of chain in a fit of impotent rage. It's not a good movie.

32:46Sean Fennessey:That's a red as well for Nightmare in the Sun. 1966, a film we've already discussed. We discussed it on the Robert Redford Hall of Fame. The Chase, which you were a fan of. I like it better than you guys. I was a little less, Amanda and I both were a little less intrigued. Fascinating cast in that film. Duvall's got a relevant part. Written by Horton Foote. Indeed. It's a relevant part, but here he is one of the townspeople. That really is the part he's playing here. No, it's not going in his Hall of Fame. two more years go by. Oh, wait a minute. I got some more TV. And there's the TV. Bob Hope presents the Chrysler Theater.

33:22Hawk. The Felony Squad. Shane. And a TV movie called Fame is the Name of the Game. Did you watch this? No. Directed by Stuart Rosenberg. Oh, sure. Yeah. And stars Tony Franciosa, Jill St. John, and Susan St. James. Maybe the only time the two St. John and Susan St. James. Yes. It's like the Avengers. It was advertised on NBC as the first made-for-television movie, which is just flatly not true. I don't know how they got away with advertising that. Tony Franciosa is the lead, and he is a features writer for a magazine called Fame in Los Angeles. You should see it just to see his office, just to see the features writer's office.

34:08It's palatial. It has a magnificent view. It's got its own bathroom, and he has a personal secretary. played by Susan St. James working in the office. It was such a popular TV movie, they turned it into a series with Tony Franciosa.

34:23Sean Fennessey:I guess there is a theme song that rings out in my mind. Fame is the name of the game. It must be from that series. It was kind of a backdoor pilot. And Duvall does not have a big part in it, but Stuart Rosenberg is somebody who would come back later in his career. Yes, for sure. we spoke about him quite a bit during our Paul Newman episode, actually. Oh, even before we get to the next movie, two episodes of The Time Tunnel, two episodes of T-H-E Cat, and an episode of Combat. Do you know what T-H-E Cat was? I don't. Well, it was about a cat burglar whose initials spelled T-H-E, T-H-E Cat. Anyway, played by Robert Loggia.

35:08I thought you'd appreciate that.

35:10Sean Fennessey:I love it. I do love Loggia. Now, it's notable that you mentioned Combat, Because I do believe combat is where Robert Duvall met Robert Altman. And his next feature film, 1967, is Countdown, which is Robert Altman's debut feature. I guess technically his second feature film, but his first in the studio system for Warner Brothers. And it's a spaceman movie, a movie about NASA, about aspiring astronauts and their countdown to lift up. It's Apollo 13. It's the early version of Apollo 13. And Robert Duvall is playing the Gary Sinise part from Apollo 13. He certainly is. have you revisited this recently?

35:46Sean Fennessey:did you watch it for this? I did it wasn't a revisit for me I'd never seen it before you'd never seen it? oh interesting James Caan also in this film fascinating movie I think a bit stiff but you can feel Altman trying to inject the movie with his style his overlapping dialogue his attempts to kind of move the camera in a way that was unusual during that period of time and create a little bit of depth of character in a movie that otherwise would have been I think a little stiffer with a different kind of filmmaker Duvall's pretty good good in this movie, I think. He is. He's quite good. He's very rarely, are we going to say he's not good in this.

36:20Sean Fennessey:I think this is the first movie of his, though, where I see his, that lack of fear to be abrasive as a character, you know, to be confrontational, to be a little bit loud, to lose his cool a little bit, seems to emerge here. I agree. But I think it's red. It's red. 1968, The Detective. Oh, sorry. Got to jump in here. Cimarron Strip, The Wild Wild West, Flesh and Blood, Run for Your Life, Judd for the Defense. Yeah, okay, The Detective. Directed by Gordon Douglas, written by Abby Mann. Yes. Curious feature film. Stars Frank Sinatra as the titular detective. Duvall is one of his colleagues, is also a police detective.

37:02Sean Fennessey:Yeah. I would say relatively modest supporting part. The milieu of the movie is quite something. It's around the murder of a gay man, and it tries to explore the gay lifestyle at this time through the eyes of police detectives who don't really understand it. And I think maybe for its time, it thought it was being sensitive. It now seems a bit outmoded and outdated. A bit of an odd Sinatra performance. If anyone has seemed less like a cop to me, I don't know if Frank Sinatra is one of them. He's just miscast. You know, I'm just exhausted by Frank Sinatra. Really? I don't know what to make of him.

37:40It's like, yeah, you're a great singer and you're a pretty good actor, but you're also this Vegas guy. And are you mopped up? You're a bully. You're a Democrat, but you're a friend with Ronald Reagan. I don't know what's going on. It's just exhausting. Okay. Did you have a chance to meet the man? No, God, no. He would have punched you right in the nose for saying that.

38:01Sean Fennessey:Yeah, exactly. I did have a nightmare where he beat me up in an elevator. No kidding. Yeah, and nobody helped me. They were all cheering Frank on. I think that was a common occurrence, honestly. He did have men who would beat you up, though. He wouldn't do it himself. The detective is definitely red. It's an interesting artifact. Popped in my Twilight Time Blu-ray for this. As did I. 1968, Bullet. So I didn't revisit Bullet, and I couldn't quite remember the context of Duvall's character. So fill me in. Is he the cab driver in this? He is the cab driver. Okay. He takes the mobster around and then later Bullet finds him and asks him to retrace his steps.

38:40And he has pretty good memory about where the mobster went and what the mobster did. It's really very functionary.

38:46Sean Fennessey:A small part. And it's such an interesting thing that he could play a critical role in To Kill a Mockingbird. Five years later, he's got a leading role in a Warner Brothers astronaut drama. and then one year later he's got the ninth build speaking part in bullet so interesting the way that he just chose parts and picked projects or hoped to get hired for things while we're doing all of this television yeah i don't know maybe help me understand this as somebody you know you get offered a lot of things you don't do everything but sometimes there's something that you really want like the psychology sometimes you go oh i've got the time and i i like peter yates and i'd like to be in a Steve McQueen movie and I'll have scenes with McQueen and, oh, get me out to San Francisco for a week.

39:30Yeah, I've got the time. I can do that. You think that's what it was? You know, you've all married four times, no children. So as we get into some of the more workaholic ways, it's like kids will put a real crimp in those plans. Ain't that the truth?

39:47Sean Fennessey:It's funny that you say that too. He was pretty open about this in the later part of his life. Said, I tried many times with women I was married to and women I was not married to. I guess I must be shooting blanks. But I think that that might contribute at least in part to the fact that, look, I mean, every single year in the 1970s, he's got multiple projects. It's amazing how frequently he worked. And so Bullet, while it is a legendary film, I don't think his work in it is legendary for the purposes of this exercise. No. Red. 1969, True Grit. Hold on. Got to jump in here with CBS Playhouse, The Mod Squad, and five episodes of the FBI.

40:19I pointed out because now it stops with True Grit. It stops. So it's almost as if he is making a real career decision here. I've done enough of this TV. He had done 30 or some episodes of television. And he said, that's enough. And I want to make movies now. And his stock was starting to rise a bit in the movie world. And so he calls it quits. And yeah, makes True Grid in 69. So he plays Ned Pepper, a very memorable part. Not a big part.

40:50Sean Fennessey:Not a big part.

40:54Sean Fennessey:famously, infamously, hated Henry Hathaway. They hated each other in this movie. But it gets a good performance out of him. I think this movie is a little bit stiff. It's best known for being the film that got John Wayne his best actor Oscar after so many years. Love the novel. I think the novel is one of the absolute classics of the 20th century. Well, and the screenplay by Marguerite Roberts hues very closely to the Charles Portis book, as does the Coen's adaptation. I mean, there are a lot of lines. just, you know, why would you go in and screw with that unbelievable dialogue? I call that bold talk for a one-eyed fat man, right?

41:29That's Duvall's line. It's just great stuff.

41:32Sean Fennessey:Yeah. I don't know that it's necessarily worthy of the haul, but he keeps finding himself in these movies, in these parts. Like, you know, he's showing up in Bullets, showing up in True Grit. This is how you start to amass this, like, that quality of, if I don't know his name, I know that face. Yeah. And then you start to situate yourself with common... common movie goers. And then every time you show up in something, you represent a standard of quality, I think, in addition to these reams and reams of TV that you just listed. And you said you watched all of it, right? You saw every single episode of television.

42:03I did not see every single episode. Okay, good.

42:05Sean Fennessey:True Grit in? No. True Grit's read. 1969, The Rain People. This part was originally meant for Rip Torn. And Rip Torn couldn't make it. He was cast in Francis Ford Coppola's film opposite James Caan he plays a remind me what is he what is he is he a man who's picked up on the side of the road the Duvall character yeah he's the father no he's a cop he's a highway patrolman he's the highway patrolman that's what it is he's the highway patrolman who picks them up and brings them back to his house and by the way there's a little more there's a little more to the story than Rip Torn couldn't make it do you know this story share it so Rip Torn Shirley Knight and James Caan rehearse for weeks in New York with Francis Ford Coppola.

42:53And then Coppola takes Shirley Knight and James Caan out. They're going to go out on the road and they're going to shoot essentially sequentially. The cop doesn't show up until the last third of the movie. So they're going out on the road and Coppola has decided we're going to shoot and I'm going to remain somewhat improvisatory about this. If I see something interesting, we're going to go there. if we don't have a definitive calendar, but we'll see you in Ogallala down the road in a month. And they leave Rip Torn with the motorcycle because he's playing a motorcycle cop. So they leave the motorcycle with Rip Torn in New York and they tell him to learn how to ride the motorcycle.

43:40Well, the motorcycle gets stolen from out in front of Rip Torn's house. And Rip Torn says, it's in my deal. You have to provide me with a motorcycle to learn. And Coppola says, well, we can't, you know, it's a low budget movie. We can't actually get you another, we can get you like a, we can get you a second, you know, a secondhand motorcycle that you can learn on. And Torn's mad about it. And he says, that wasn't the deal. And then they reach out to him, and they wanted him to get his shoe and calf measured for the boots that he had to wear. And Torrance said, that's it, and quit. So they're out on the road filming the movie, and suddenly the guy they've been rehearsing with for weeks can't appear.

44:33James Caan recommends Robert Duvall because they had worked together on Countdown. And Shirley Knight had done an episode of Naked City with Robert Duvall. So they both had associations with them and they tell Coppola, you should hire Robert Duvall. And they changed the history of movies, really. I mean, that's the first time Coppola meets Duvall is working on this film.

44:55Sean Fennessey:We will get to their reunion. The Rain People is an interesting movie. His performances, I remember. what I remember most about the performance is the bad dad quality that that character has which is something he would return to in his time as a film actor and he's very effective and very menacing in this movie I don't think it's one of his best performances or one of the most critical performances of all time nor do I I would consider it a yellow for this performance because of it becoming the first union with Coppola we can yellow it we're gonna yellow it 1970 MASH this is his second film with Altman And he plays Frank Burns, who is the detestable Frank Burns.

45:35Sean Fennessey:I mean, immediately identified at the beginning of the film as the enemy to the two surgeons who come in in this movie. Interesting, he didn't play a lot of characters like this. Right. Like the unlikable kind of squirrely heel who also gets the girl weirdly in Hot Lips. Perfectly fine performance. I think Frank Burns wouldn't mean anything to us were it not for the TV show. I think the TV show kind of solidifies Frank Burns. Larry Linville, who was great as Frank Burns' overtly comic performance on the TV show. But I think he's what cements Frank Burns in the public mind. Yeah. In a way that, if the TV show never happened, I don't think Frank Burns' name would have any meaning for us.

46:22And the performance, let's face it, it's not a big part of the film. No. It's very much a part of an ensemble.

46:27Sean Fennessey:It's weird because the film itself is so full of ridiculousness. And Duvall very rarely played that note as an actor. It was hard for him to not be dignified. And so, to me, I say this is red. I agree. 1970, The Revolutionary. Now, I had never seen this movie. Speaking of Long Island, this comes from Paul Williams, a filmmaker who only made a handful of films. And what an interesting movie this is. It really is. Not entirely successful, I would say. I agree. But quite an interesting portrait of a revolutionary played by John Voight at the end of the 1960s who goes on a kind of journey of exploration in terms of what kind of revolutionary he wants to be, what kind of action he wants to take, what kind of community he wants to be a part of.

47:11Sean Fennessey:and it's kind of this like roving journey movie where he moves from place to place and he does eventually make a connection with Duvall's character who is this sort of zealot you know sort of like hard seemingly far left figure attempting to you know incite true revolution I found Duvall's performance to be a little anonymous in this movie because it's very much in the psychology of John Voight who's somewhere between hyper intellectualized and also wishy-washy at the same time movies. It's an interesting comment on the vagueness of the movements in that time. I'm glad I watched it. I am too. I was surprised that I didn't know anything about it.

47:51It's like, how does a movie with Jon Voight and Robert Duvall, that's not terrible. How does it just have no footprint at all? It's not a terrible movie. It's kind of interesting. Jon Voight's very good in it. He is very good. And Duvall, playing this character of Desparte, yeah, he's set up as a kind of, as a bit of a revolutionary guru, only to find that maybe he's also having to play the game to a certain extent. Yeah, it's not a, it's not a, it's not a green, but I'm glad I watched it.

48:27Sean Fennessey:I am too. I want to see the rest of Williams' movies. Tarantino in Cinema Speculation wrote a bit about Paul Williams and how his filmography is a bit overlooked or not really preserved in the way that it should be. But his previous movie, Out of It, it also features John Voight, one of his first film performances, I guess the same year as Midnight Cowboy. And Dealing, or the Berkeley to Boston 40 Brick Lost Bag Blues, was this film that came out two years later, stars Michael Douglas, based on a Michael Crichton novel. I'm not seeing those films. I'd like to check them out. I've seen Dealing, though, a long time ago.

48:58I should try to search that out again. The Revolutionary, probably red. Yeah.

49:04Sean Fennessey:This is an interesting one. THX1138. Isn't Lawman first? Maybe I have the order on. I have THX here, but you want to talk Lawman? Sure. It's terrible. Michael Winner's a terrible director. Yes. From the visionary who brought you Death Wish comes a bad Western. He was terrible then. He was always terrible and apparently a terrible person too. Yeah. People say he was not a nice man. written by Gerald Wilson, who wrote some pretty good thrillers from that period, as I recall, novels, with Burt Lancaster and Lee J. Cobb. I got to tell you, I'm out on Lee J. Cobb. No kidding. I'm kind of out on Lee J.

49:40Cobb. It's pretty, pretty hand-bone. Good Lord. It's a terrible movie. And it's just like Michael Winter didn't get the memo that something interesting was happening in Hollywood at the time. Because in a lot of ways, it feels like a movie from 1958.

49:56Sean Fennessey:It is old fashioned, but you can see him trying to do things with the camera that you can feel him performing the act of auteurism. You know, all these insane zooms like throughout the movie that feel very modern, but he doesn't know how to use them to psychologize the characters. He's just doing them because he thinks they look cool, which is the one kind of tactic in the film that makes it feel not like a Kirk Douglas movie from 1955. I agree. It's not very good. It's definitely not going in. So let's talk about THX. He's the titular THX. This is George Lucas' first movie. This is a critical movie in the history of science fiction.

50:34You go to see a movie and you see THX up on the screen. I don't guess you see that anymore, but you're used to for a while. See THX on the screen. Robert Duvall was THX. He literally was. And he had met George Lucas because George Lucas was making a documentary about the making of the rain people. Of course. So again, if Rip Torn... Wow. Doesn't show up. It was Duvall's introduction to Coppola and Lucas. Is this Robert Duvall's only science fiction film? I think so.

51:07Sean Fennessey:No, The Sixth Day with Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's right, of course. I also did not revisit that, but good shout on that one. I mean, technically he's in The Invasion of the Body Snatchers. That's right. But this is real sci-fi. I mean, this is kind of hardcore sci-fi. Yes. I mean, a very interesting movie, a very important movie, I think, to the new Hollywood in a lot of ways. It's a bit dull now when I look back at it. I didn't rewatch it in full for this. I did. You did? I did rewatch it for this, yeah. Very different performance from him, as I recall, too. You know, because he also is very internal, very quiet, very measured.

51:41Well, it's his first lead. Yeah. The first leading role he's played on film. And yeah, it's, I mean, I just admire its experimental nature. It's an experimental movie, right? He had made it originally. Lucas had made it as his thesis project when he was at USC. And so then somebody gave him some money to turn it into a feature. But there are, I mean, obviously borrowing liberally from 2001, some of the elliptical things that are happening in this film. And I had only ever seen it in like bad tube, you know, late night TV or VHS. so to see it now on the blue on the big screen it's like oh that's it's really something well it's Lucas's best film

52:31Sean Fennessey:you think it's Lucas's best film you can take so not American Graffiti not in the conversation either despite we know your we know your stance on Star Wars and you can leave that I love Star Wars leave me alone okay have you gotten feedback on that yeah what's it been like I gotta say you know split oh really oh there's a real split you've got you've got trench run haters who've joined your side i've got a lot of support for my take on the trench run a lot of support well so are these prominent figures in the industry who are calling you up and saying tracy sir thank you for your fearlessness your courage in the face of big trench run let's say yes let's say yes, they are.

53:18THX, screenplay by George Lucas and Walter Murch. Indeed. Who was a sound man. And the soundscape in THX is wild. Yeah. You can just. I need to rewatch this. You should just listen to it. The soundscape is really something. I'm waiting on the 4K for this, to be honest with you. Where is that? I don't know where the 4K is. I actually had to replace my, my disc was corrupted. I had to get a new disc. Something was wrong with it. That's THXian. There you go. Extras in THX played by members of the cult Synanon. Synanon was a very violent cult. Eventually got into a lot of trouble in San Francisco.

54:04And a lot of people went to prison and they put a derattled rattlesnake in the mailbox of the district attorney, and he actually got bit by the rattlesnake. I mean, Synanon has an ugly history, but they're the extras in THX.

54:20Sean Fennessey:Yeah, there was a documentary about Synanon a couple years ago on HBX called The Synanon Fix. Upsetting stuff. Good to know George Lucas got them paid. Is this yellow? Sure. Okay. 1972, The Godfather. perhaps you've heard of it. It's one of the most critical American works of art of the last 200 years. And he plays Tom Hagen, who was my emotional entry point as a slightly taciturn, emotionally inert Irish man. I'm German-Irish, one of my favorite line readings in movie history. I love Tom Hagen. I think Tom Hagen is such a necessary part of this story. Essential. And, you know, I think that for an actor who could be so explosive, the choice to play Tom in this way throughout both of these movies is very shrewd.

55:16Because he's up against so many powerhouses and not just, you know, Vito and Sonny, but Clemenza and Tessio and, you know, obviously Michael, these like explosive performers,

55:32Sean Fennessey:charisma machines. and for him to just withdraw in the way that he does is so great and he's really the metronome of the movie. But he's used so brilliantly by Coppola throughout the two films. And the times that he steps forward, the times that suddenly the scene is about him. I mean, I was thinking of this. I rewatched both Godfathers for this draft. I rewatched them with Carrie. And I was thinking about the horse's head. And I actually paused the movie and I turned to Carrie and I said, whose idea was that? I mean, was it Tom's idea? Does Tom go to the Don and say he's not going to budge? and the Don says, cut off the horse's head and put it in his bed?

56:19I don't think so. I think it's Tom.

56:23Sean Fennessey:I've never described that level of malevolence to Tom. Who's making that call? This is the kind of thing. That's a big move. My reading of that scene is always, that scene that we never see, is that Vito says, what does he care about? What matters to him? And Tom knows that he can tell him, well, we had this encounter in the stables, and I saw the affection that he showed to Khartoum. I think there's another way to read it, which is that Vito sends him out and says, take care of it. Could be. And Tom takes care of it. And John Marley says, oh! Oh! The best. When Sonny dies, the choice, this is a screenwriter's choice, that Tom is the one to tell the Don.

57:08Right. Brilliant. the choice that the Don comforts Tom and not the other way around. Now, I don't know if that's screenwriting or if that's directing or if that's the actor, but it's brilliant. It's absolutely brilliant.

57:28Sean Fennessey:Yeah, there's something, there's an unspoken vulnerability in Tom as a character who's brought into that world, who is adopted into it and who is made to feel like he belongs to something and yet is still on the outside in some way. It's a very, very psychologically complicated character who never really gets to talk about that. And if this, if that character were in a movie today, you'd get the origin story. You'd get, well, we knew his mother and she was a drug addict or, you know, he was a good friend of his and we brought him in because he was good at book learning or there would have been more.

58:03Sean Fennessey:There's not a lot there in the movie. I think there's more in the book. I've not read the book. It's not good. One of the reasons I haven't read it is I hear that over and over again. But I'm happy to not know about it. I think obviously Tom Hagen is going into the Hall of Fame in some form or fashion. The question is once, twice? I don't know. He's absolutely going. Do you want to have a whole Godfather discussion now? There's a lot of work between two, so why don't we just talk two now? Okay. I'm a little loud on two. Oh, I just said this on a show. I just said this on a recent Star Wars episode.

58:38Sean Fennessey:I was like, two has flaws. I'm a little out on two. For one thing, so I watched both of these with Carrie. Can I tell you the story? This is a good place to do it, yeah. I first saw The Godfather. The first time I saw it was when it was on TV as, what was it called? The Godfather saga, the entire novel on screen or something. Francis Ford Coppola put the two movies together. He put them in chronological order. So we start with De Niro in the old country. Then we move to the Godfather film. Then we move to the Michael section. This is the first time you saw it. You saw it in the way. Oh, interesting.

59:14It was 1977. So I would have been 12 years old. Okay. He also added an hour's worth of footage. I mean, from the time the Godfather first appeared, they were like, how the hell are we going to put this on TV? It was the biggest movie in history and it was rated R. How the hell are we going to get it on TV without just hacking it up? Coppola wasn't going to let them go in and just hack it up. So he puts this together and played like a miniseries over three nights. That's the first time I saw it. And I remember even then, I really enjoyed the Italian section with De Niro and Bruno Kirby and Gaston.

59:53What's the name of the guy who plays Fanucci? He was a great actor. He was also in The Conformist, great Italian actor. I really loved that section of the movie. I found that very compelling. And then The Godfather starts. Then we go to the wedding. And I Believe in America, and we watch The Godfather. And when I Believe in America starts, even then, you had a sense of, oh, now this is really special. It was good before, but now this is especially good. This is really special. And you get The Godfather. And then you go to Michael's story in The Godfather Part 2. And then when I watched with Carrie.

1:00:31First of all, Carrie and I had watched earlier during the pandemic, we watched the Godfather movies. So I put on The Godfather here recently and she was like, we're watching The Godfather? And I said, well, I'm doing the Duval draft. I want to revisit it. We watched The Godfather and we got about maybe about where Johnny Fontaine arrives at the wedding. And Carrie said, I've never seen The Godfather before. And I said, you watched it with me during the pandemic. And she said, I remember absolutely nothing. I don't remember any of the characters. I don't remember the milieu. I don't remember the times.

1:01:02I don't remember nothing.

1:01:03Sean Fennessey:Oh, man. So, you know, I need to get Carrie in to get some testing. Well, but the pandemic did do that to us. That's right. There are things that happened in that time that I don't remember either. So we watched The Godfather and the next night we watched The Godfather Part 2. And we were both a little lukewarm on Godfather Part 2. Well, let me just say something. I think it's actually not helpful to watch them in close succession. I think it's nice to watch them as their own separate artifacts and think about what it was like to see it in 72 and then to wait two years to see part two and to be brought back into that feeling because I think narratively, it does not feel as strong as part one does.

1:01:44Sean Fennessey:It does not feel as essential to understanding that world. It feels like a lot of the magnitude of Michael's crisis is somewhat iterative to his crisis in one. It's just an elevation of that crisis. And I just, I have never really had the strongest affinity for the De Niro sections of part two. I acknowledge it's total mastery from a filmmaking perspective and a performance perspective. I think it's a great film. I'm not saying that Godfather 2 is bad. But I definitely, if I had to choose, I would choose one over two any day of the week. And I like the De Niro section more than the Michael section in part two.

1:02:21because I just don't find following Michael's joyless churning through his job any fun.

1:02:29Sean Fennessey:Well, it's a true descent into evil, though. I mean, it is really— I don't know how much of a descent it is. He seems kind of there when the movie starts. That's fair. Well, I mean, what he does to Fredo is the totalizing— Fredo is— And here's something that'll piss off everybody I know. I don't think Lee Strasberg's that good. Oh, really? I don't think he's that good. Oh, that I can't agree with. I really like it. Here's another thing. I got to say, I'm watching with my wife. I can't help but watch a little bit through her eyes. Man, there's not much for the ladies in these movies. Well, that's a fact.

1:03:00You know, the truth is, do you know how many scenes involve a guy telling the ladies, please leave the room? Or you shut up? Or don't interrupt? It's not wrong, but I would argue that that's a key theme of the movie. I don't deny it. I recognize that it's part of the film. But still, when Michael shuts the door in Kay's face, I felt like he was shutting the door in Carrie's face. It was just like, I'm sorry, you just don't get to be a part of this.

1:03:31Sean Fennessey:You're not wrong. So you're saying we should delete the Godfather films, no one should see them, they're terrible? I love, first of all, I'm not submitting to your tyranny of these questions. I know all about this. Second of all, I love the Godfather movies. I recognize how great Godfather Part 2 is. I do recognize it's an absolute great movie. There's a mastery of the film language there that's just undeniable. Yep. John Cazale, for me, is MVP in part two. And if you want to green Duvall for the Godfathers, can we do that? We'll give him a green for Tom Hagen? What does Tom say? I was always loyal to you, Michael.

1:04:14Sean Fennessey:you know when he it's the best thing he has in two for the most part he's just sitting there telling Kay to you know chill out yeah but that moment is so very powerful it's great yeah I would I would choose one over two if I had to choose both because I love the movie more and I think he has a little bit more to do he has a little bit more complexity you mentioned he gets that scene where he gets to talk to the Don so I'll say we'll do two as the green but if you want to count it as the saga and then you know we can also talk about the fact that he's not in three see that's the thing I think we should also put three in his Hall of Fame because— His absence.

1:04:48His absence. I agree. I mean, it's pure director hubris. I've seen it in storefront theater in Chicago when a director suddenly gets to a point, they go, it doesn't matter. You know, I'm going to make—this is going to be great. It doesn't matter who it is. It's like, actually, it does matter. And you've killed off James—right? You've killed off so many of the energetic characters from the first two movies. pay the money. Pay him the goddamn money and get Duvall on set.

1:05:17Sean Fennessey:So famously, Duvall felt that he was not getting the quote he should have gotten to appear in Godfather 3, especially relative to his co-star, Al Pacino. So he didn't take the part and the part was rewritten and recast with George Hamilton. And that is also one of the reasons why they're just two very different kinds of actors, two different kinds of... That's another part of my problem with two, by the way. The Richard Castellano not coming back Clemenza is no, Gazo's great. I love Pentangeli though. That's one of my favorite characters. But it's so clearly when you see the writing of the De Niro section with Clemenza he's so clearly meant to be an echo of that in the later scenes.

1:05:58It's really I mean, I understand maybe that wasn't Coppola's hubris maybe that was Richard Castellano's hubris.

1:06:05Sean Fennessey:Based on what we know about him it does seem like he asked for the moon and the stars. I think that that's one of those rare blessing in disguise. I really think what Frankie Five Angels does is really special in that movie. Anyhow, we'll put the Godfather in as an experience, but it counts as one. Great. This episode is brought to you by Apple and AT &T. Scroll long enough and you'll hear it all. Miracle diets, fitness trends, you name it. But with iPhone and Apple Watch, you get meaningful insights from a very trusted source, your body. You can track sleep quality, cardio fitness, and more, then unpack all the information in the health app on iPhone to get a picture of your overall health.

1:06:45These health insights are developed with clinical experts from start to finish. Find out more at apple.com slash health. Apple Watch is not a medical device and should not be

1:06:54Sean Fennessey:used as a substitute for professional medical advice. The great Northfield, Minnesota Raid, which is the feature film debut of Philip Kaufman. San Francisco filmmaker again. We're in with the San Francisco guys. Yes. And this is an Old West heist movie starring Duvall as Jesse James. Now, I haven't seen this in a minute. I watched it. Was it your first time seeing it? It was. What'd you think? One of those hippie Westerns, you know. Just like, we don't need to cut these guys' hair. That's how they would have worn it in the Old West. He gets a lot of work in the revisionist Westerns in the 70s.

1:07:35Sean Fennessey:Yeah. It's all right. It's all right. Yeah. His take on Jesse James is, well, he plays him like pretty ignorant, right? Pretty ignorant type, which is, you know, probably. I feel like that's the accurate. I think that's probably true of the reality. Historical reading of the character, even though he sometimes is portrayed as much slicker and more debonair in a way. Yeah, I think the movie is kind of interesting. thing. It's fascinating that he, that this run of movies that he makes in 1973, I don't know how much time we can spend on all of them, but I will say great Northfield, Minnesota Raiders read.

1:08:11Sean Fennessey:1973 tomorrow, complete discovery for me. Had never heard of this movie. This is a Horton Foote wrote it. Based on a William Faulkner story. I had not, which I had not read. And And Duvall plays a poor migrant farmer who comes to meet a pregnant woman. And they form a bond. And this is like a very complex, quiet, independent film that clearly only exists because Horton Foote and Robert Duvall wanted it to seemingly. I think they had worked on a stage version of it in New York. I know that Horton Foote had it. I don't know that Duvall was part of it. He might have been. I watched this on Tubi. Tubi?

1:08:56Sean Fennessey:Was it Tubi? Might have been Canopy. Canopy. Canopy. And I was, it felt like him channeling Boo Radley in some ways, even though he is, you know, extremely uneducated in this movie, the character that he plays. But I thought a very special performance and a very special kind of movie, an unusual movie in terms of its pacing and what the story is and very theatrical, like not terribly cinematic given its scope. but I liked it. I think it's a great movie. I think it's a great performance. We talk sometimes that sometimes he takes a big swing, and this is a big swing in terms of the accent work that he's doing.

1:09:38Clearly, it's a... Billy Bob Thornton likes to tell the story of the character of Sling Blade came to him while he was shaving in the mirror. Well, he was shaving in the mirror after watching the movie Tomorrow, because it's very clear that his character in Sling Blade takes something from Jackson Fentry, the character that Duvall plays here. You know, this was Duvall's favorite of all these movies. This was his favorite. I think it's superb, and I think more people should know it.

1:10:06Sean Fennessey:Now, do you think this is... I'd like to put a discovery in, you know. I think it's green. I'm going to say yellow for the time being. Fair enough. I don't know how many truly legendary parts he has. Actually, and in my, I don't know why our timelines are a little different. What I had was Godfather 72 followed by Tomorrow 72. And if his first act after the hit of The Godfather, and by the way, they knew they had something with The Godfather while they were making it. He talked about that as well. For him to follow up the Godfather by going down south and playing this character in this black and white independent thing.

1:10:49By the way, Peter Masterson, Horton Foote's first cousin, is in the movie. He plays the lawyer in the framing device of the court case. Yeah. He's the attorney.

1:11:02Sean Fennessey:So this movie, it says, was released April 9th, 1972, but it only played 32 dates. It was not open very long. It did not play in very many movie theaters. So it's a little bit hard to know. But it says 72 here. It was pretty obscure. I had seen it before. I think maybe Facets had a pretty hard-to-watch VHS, which is where I had seen it before. Or maybe I'd just seen it on regular TV. But I revisited it on Canopy. It's a good quality transfer on Canopy. It looks good. If you guys haven't seen this, you should check it out. It's really good. 1973, Joe Kidd. this is Clint Eastwood's first western after Dirty Harry and also a kind of sort of revisionist western directed by John Sturgis Duvall plays written by Elmore Leonard that's right based on his novel right I don't know that it is it may be an original screenplay is it just an original screenplay yeah Harlan Frank Harlan the character that Duvall plays is a wealthy landowner who wants to get a native man off of his land and assassinated effectively.

1:12:10Yeah.

1:12:11Sean Fennessey:So that he can pause the reclamation movement that he's trying to organize. Clint Eastwood plays a bounty hunter who's hired by Harlan. And that sounds like a complex and interesting material, but I find the movie just turns into a little bit of a shoot-em-up and doesn't really have any nuance. Everything about it is a little surprising that it's not better than it is. That you've got Eastwood as the hero and Duvall as the bad guy and written by Elmore Leonard and directed by John Sturges, who had certainly made a lot of great movies. Now, maybe he's at the end of his run here. I know that Sturges and Eastwood fought terribly and Sturges was perhaps drunk on set a lot.

1:12:47Yeah, I watched some of the extras.

1:12:49Sean Fennessey:It's only a few years after Magnificent Seven, though. I know. It's not that long. I know. And, you know, I don't know. It's funny that it just felt real flabby to me. Don Stroud, who's in the movie, I saw an interview with him talking about the film and he said, he said, Clint should have directed the film. We would have all been better off if Clint had directed the film. But it certainly doesn't take off in any way. Interesting. And this is in the aftermath of Play Misty for me. He had started making films. And he makes Breezy one year later. So he's gotten above. And he was going to fire Philip Kaufman off of Outlaw Josie Wales a couple of years after this.

1:13:21That's right. So clearly Eastwood had gotten to the point where he was particular about the way these things were being put together.

1:13:28Sean Fennessey:Yeah. So Joe Kidd is not going in. Let's talk about The Outfit. a film that came up in a recent discussion we had on physical media episode because it's being reissued just on Blu-ray right? Not on 4K? I think it's 4K. Is it 4K? I hope. From the director John Flynn written by Flynn but with a polish by Walter Hill who will come up again here and is based on a Richard Stark novel it's a Parker movie and is it the best Parker movie? No it's maybe not the best Parker movie. You say point blank? I'm going to say point blank is, well, look. It's not Parker. It's Earl Macklin, but it is Parker. Two sides of the same coin, right?

1:14:07Point Blank's after something very different in terms of its architecture and the way it's shot, the kind of prismatic nature of the way that movie is put together. It's very different than The Outfit, which is just kind of down and dirty, almost like a drive-in movie. Yes.

1:14:23Sean Fennessey:It's a fussy exploitation movie, but it's really good. I was, I was knocked out. I was knocked out by the outfit. I was really, really thrilled with the outfit. Very engaging. I think he's extremely well cast in this part, Duvall. And you know, it's a movie star part. It's a tough guy part. And he's very convincing. He's basically on a kind of like a revenge tour to get back the money that he feels he's owed in the aftermath of it. Is it a heist? Isn't that what Parker's always doing? It is what he's always doing. Karen Black, Joe Don Baker, Robert Ryan, Timothy Carey. Really great cast in the movie.

1:14:57Sean Fennessey:This is an interesting one where like, I'll recommend this to anybody who likes this podcast and just be like, this is a really good 70s crime movie. Is it a Hall of Fame movie? I don't really know. In terms of the act that we're doing here? I watched it with the nanny. I mentioned the nanny to you. She was just totally transported. She was thrilled by the movie. She was like, that's fantastic. Was this before or after in the realm of the census? It was before. Maybe that has curdled. It primed her for what was coming next. I'll yellow it just because I got affection for this movie. you thinking green?

1:15:29Sean Fennessey:I'm thinking green but let's make it. You went into this act thinking we're going to make the outfit green? I didn't, no, no no, no, no, I didn't, I try you know, I try to stay supple. Okay you sure do once again 1973 badge 373 this is another crime movie from the perspective of a retired cop who is very clearly based on Eddie Egan, the same character who Gene Hackman more or less portrays as Popeye Doyle in the French connection. And this is a nasty bit of business, this movie. And Eddie Egan's in both movies too. He is indeed. Legendary slash infamous New York City cop who had unkind words for everybody.

1:16:10Sean Fennessey:I really wanted to like this more. I think it has all the pieces for things that I'm interested in. And I think Duvall's good. I think it's a good performance, but the movie felt a bit uneven to me. Not to mention the racism. I mean, it had accusations of racism at the time. And then you watch it and you're like, oh no, that's really racist. It sure is. You know, in terms of like authenticity, it seems like it's getting pretty close to what Eddie Egan represented in the world. Yeah, perhaps. And maybe the way that he moved through it and the way that he saw it. I'm not sure that that does it any favors in the revisit.

1:16:46But it's also just not as, I mean, there's the set piece with Duvall in the bus trying to escape the gang members who are coming after him. And that's a pretty good action set piece in a movie like this, especially for its period. But the movie itself, I don't know. The fact that it's also made so close to the outfit, I'm just like, give me the outfit 10 times out of 10. Well, that's how I feel. This is red, by the way. This is how I feel about Lady Ice as well, which is another very odd film. This starts his collaboration with Tom Grise. He worked with Tom Grise several times. I would argue they both did better work elsewhere.

1:17:27It says something about Lady Ice that I watched this not for this draft, but I watched it for the first time maybe two years ago. I'd picked up the Blu-ray from Kino. I mean, here's Donald Sutherland and Robert Duvall. Jennifer O 'Neill, yeah. And it was like, oh, a couple of my favorite actors in this movie. It says something that two years later, I can't tell you anything about Lady Ice. I don't even really remember Duvall in it or barely remember him in.

1:17:49Sean Fennessey:A very strange movie about like an insurance investigator slash detective figure who gets roped in some sort of jewel scam and there's a femme fatale who finds her way into the story. I was watching the movie trying to make sense of what the plot was and you know, sometimes that happens. A movie just doesn't really connect in any way. Very dull for the, I mean, this period of time, these films, this is my favorite thing. In the known universe. Crime movies in the 1970s, that's it. Yeah. This movie stinks. Tom Grise, the father, by the way, of John Grise. Great actor, yes. Who we know from The White Lotus and other things as well.

1:18:33So he starts a collaboration with Duvall that extends over a few movies. So clearly they were buddies. And like I say, I just think they both did better work elsewhere.

1:18:42Sean Fennessey:where in 1974 he has a very small part but a critical part in the conversation where he plays quote the director person who receives some critical information near the end of the film yeah um quite chilling yeah uh you know a perfect movie i'm not sure it's like necessary to the canon of duval oh no it's a purely a purely a favor yeah yeah um so we can we can read the conversation The Godfather Part II has a green of sorts. An honorary green. 1975, Killer Elite. I haven't seen the Killer Elite in a minute. This is a Sam Peckinpah movie in which he is reunited with James Caan. And as I recall, this is an extremely violent, cynical, mean movie.

1:19:29Written by Mark Norman and Sterling Siliphant. Sterling Siliphant who wrote In the Heat of the Night as well as creating a couple of great TV series. It's terrible. It's really not a good film at all. and I think we've talked about this before, that I think it's really the demarcation point for Peckinpah. It's like he kind of falls off a... He was really struggling at this time in his life

1:19:52Sean Fennessey:for a lot of drinking drugs at this time. It's not a strong movie. No. It was remade in the 2010s, similarly mean-spirited vehicle, which I think featured Jason Statham. Does that sound right? Clive Owen, Robert De Niro. It's Robert De Niro in the Killer Elite remake? I believe he is. Okay. That's red. 1975 Breakout. This is the first time I ever saw Robert Duvall. Really? In a movie theater. Okay. I was 10 years old. Interesting way to be introduced. I went to see Breakout. I went to see the Charles Bronson movie. I didn't know who Robert Duvall was. Again, in the sort of that guy way. Probably only did I know who he was a couple years later when the Godfather Saga played on television and I watched it.

1:20:39So this would have been the first time I saw it. Saw him. Kind of a notable movie in that it's the first film ever to use the saturation strategy of release that would be used later the same year for Jaws.

1:20:55Sean Fennessey:I did not know that. In which there was a big marketing campaign. We're going to put it in 1500. We're just going to clobber them on the first weekend, and then we'll let them sort out the bodies after that. And apparently, Breakout was the first movie to ever do that. It seemed to do okay. made$16 million in 1975. Bronson was still a big star. He was a big star. He's, of course, opposite his wife, Jill Ireland. As he always was. Yes. And Duvall, I believe that was in every contract that he signed from henceforth. Directed by Tom Grise. That's right. A reunion with Grise. And Duvall plays a wrongfully imprisoned man in Mexico in a CIA operation that attempts to extract him from this.

1:21:35Sean Fennessey:Kind of a weird movie. Tonally, Bronson is cracking a lot of jokes. Yeah, there's some weird comic aside. It's strange to try to put him in a little more comic. Yeah, that's not really his speed. But I have to say, as a 10-year-old, there's a moment where Duvall believes that he's being smuggled out of the prison in a coffin, only to then be put in a hole and have some dirt thrown on him. And as a 10-year-old, it scared the hell out of me. I've often wondered if Tarantino is citing this in the Kill Bill sequence where the bride is buried. Breakout is read. 1976 the eagle has landed Robert Duvall plays Colonel Rattle who is a leader for the Third Reich and he plays big swing here we go another big swing a Nazi doing a German accent yeah German accent eyepatch eyepatch that's right I don't believe any other actors are attempting a German accent in the film yeah it is a bit strange every other actor in this film is British using their natural accent Brits are allowed to be Brits I guess but we have to do a German accent I get a huge kick out of that this one is a little disappointing.

1:22:38Sean Fennessey:I hadn't seen this before and I fired it up. I think maybe the night that he passed and wanted a little more from it, appreciated what he was doing. I felt like this is a real going for the gusto kind of villainous part. And he's kind of an orchestrator of some of the actions in the movie. It's interesting too, in that it's directed by John Sturges. And so if what Don Stroud had said was accurate, why does Duvall want to go back and work with John Sturges again. Screenplay by Tom Mankiewicz, who was part of the Mankiewicz family based on the book by Jack Higgins. It's a fun watch in a sense. World War II programmer.

1:23:16Yeah. Great cast. Great cast. And yeah, Duvall's up for it. The German accent is, he's not embarrassing himself with the accent. He's viable in the film.

1:23:30Sean Fennessey:How do you feel about Donald Sutherland's Irish accent? less sure of myself, but God bless him. Nice to see Jenny Agater here. Sure, always. Always nice to see her. Always nice. That's red. The Eagle has landed. The 7 % Solution, a movie I've always wanted to see. I had been, for years, one of those movies, I was like, one of these days, I'm going to pop this in and I'm going to love it. And I wish that I loved it and I didn't love it. No, it's not. It's not great. It was such a big hit. I mean, it was a real, I mean, the book, was such a big bestseller. It was really an airport book. Was it his book?

1:24:05Yeah, it was Nicholas Meyer's book. And it was one of the books you pick up in the airport. And it was a really successful book. And they rushed it into production. Like, we're going to capitalize off of the success of this book. The casting of Robert Duvall as Dr. Watson is unexpected. It's Nicole Williamson's movie. I mean, as it should be. It should be Holmes' movie. and Nicole Williamson is in interesting Holmes, I think.

1:24:32Sean Fennessey:He is. I think Duvall is fine in the film. I do too. To me, it's really more of a pacing and story issue. It looks gorgeous. Ken Adam was a production designer and the production designer, all the stained glass and stuff in this movie. It's really great. Yeah. It's an odd one. You know, Alan Arkin plays Sigmund Freud in the film. Vanessa Redgrave is in the movie. Olivier is in the movie as Moriarty. Yeah. Yeah, and then Olivier's in there as Moriarty, and Holmes is obsessed with Moriarty, thinking he's up to something bad. And they're all like, no, it's the cocaine. And so you assume, no, Holmes is right.

1:25:08Something is up with Moriarty, and it's going to turn out that he's the big bad, and he's just not.

1:25:12Sean Fennessey:No, and he keeps protesting that he's not, and he's not. Samantha Egger, my beloved, oh my God, has such a crush on her. She plays Duvall's wife, Mary. This should have been my favorite movie. it's you know sometimes it just doesn't fire up read for the 7 % solution 1976 the same year Network Duvall plays Frank Hackett Instant Green of course of course just one of my single favorite performances in movie history as the hatchet man for the network corporate division have you read Dave Itzkoff's book sure have it's it's a really good read it's funny how little Duvall is in it, which just goes to show you, I think, something about, I mean, he could be famously grouchy, especially in later years.

1:26:05And there were some directors he really didn't like working with. But sometimes I think he showed up, he knew the lines, he did the job, he got the hell out. Nothing notable about it. When you watch the special features and you hear Lumet's commentary, he has a kind of chuckling thing about Duvall being in the movie, kind of

1:26:24Sean Fennessey:I'm like, can you believe this is Robert Duvall? He loves him, though. He loves him. Or at least he loves that performance. The book that you're referring to is called Mad as Hell, The Making of Network and the Fateful Vision of the Angriest Man in Movies. It's a wonderful book if you like network. The, you know, Ruddy Doesn't Count Anymore scene, you know, the big sequence with William Holden and Faye Dunaway and Duvall in Duvall's office after we get the ratings for Howard Beale. I just I could watch it a hundred times in a row his performance his glee and rage and energy and bewilderment everything that he is doing in that it's big you know and it is showy and it is performative of the Chayefsky dialogue if you're going to be in one of these movies one of this writer's movies you need to chew on the scenes and he fucking eats that scene up I love it so much it's fantastic it's uh uh it's fantastic it's just great it's just right in the pocket and uh he's playing a corporate head right he's got a facility with language he's got a facility with he's he's got money it's again it's just you consider the character he plays in tomorrow it's just how is it the same guy or opposites totally he's done some of the best paper acting i've ever seen where he's handed a piece of paper and he starts hating the piece of paper.

1:27:49Sean Fennessey:All these little choices that he makes in that scene. I love so much. Network definitely agreed. 1977, the greatest. Been aware of this for a while. I only watched Robert De Niro or Robert Duvall scenes in this movie. Well, then you didn't watch much. He's not, he's not in it very much. This is Muhammad Ali making his very own biopic about his own life. And so bizarre. It's such a bizarre artifact. It's really weird. Would you ever do this for yourself? yeah looking exactly like this because one of the weird things about it is that i mean ali's playing himself as a 20 year old yeah and he's 35 and he's already a little punchy right yeah and you could it's not like he's it's almost like right before the yell action he says that went something like this it's not like he's really in it it's like he's remembering a story that happened to him.

1:28:41Sean Fennessey:Yeah. It's a very odd movie. Is this Tom Grise as well? It is. So... Screenplay by Ring Lardner Jr. who wrote MASH. That's right. Duval plays Bill McDonald who was a promoter and he promoted it was the first list in Fight? Yeah. And there was some controversy around that because Ali in particular wanted to be able to speak publicly about his conversion to Islam and his faith and the nation of Islam. And Bill McDonald did not want that and they needed a man I think, an actor of some gravitas. And so they brought in Duvall for one scene where he fights back against Ali. And then in one scene later, he decides, actually, it'll be all right.

1:29:20Sean Fennessey:Just do it this way. There's something very untruthful to me about how all that part of the movie plays out. That's red. Also notable because the song The Greatest Love of All was written for this movie, sung a couple of times on the soundtrack by George Benson. and then it was only brought back by Whitney Houston for The Bodyguard and where it, of course, became a massive hit. You big Whitney Houston guy? Sure. Who doesn't like Whitney Houston? Great. 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a reunion with Philip Kaufman. He shows up for one scene. Should we? Where does We're Not the Jet Set come in?

1:29:58Sean Fennessey:Well, good point. Let's talk about that. I haven't seen it. You can't see it. I assumed that. So, We're Not the Jet Set is the first film that Duvall directs. It's a documentary about rodeo men? So, when he and James Caan were in Ogallala making The Rain People, they became friends with this family of rodeo folk. And he stayed friends with them and he went back over some years continuing to shoot them. He said, he claimed that he was shooting them in the style of a Ken Loach movie. So, he was aware of Ken Loach. He has talked about Ken Loach over the years. I saw him cite him multiple times. So that's, and it took him years to do.

1:30:40He was doing it with his wife at the time. They eventually put this movie together. And then he and his wife got divorced. And she took the movie and it hasn't been seen since.

1:30:53Sean Fennessey:Wow. Yeah. Well, that's too bad. I would really like to see it. Apparently it's pretty good. Yeah, that's a shame. Hopefully they find a way to put that back out in the world. That's not going to go in though, because we haven't seen it. in 78 he does make Invasion of the Body Snatchers he's in one scene he has no lines of dialogue he plays a priest swinging on a swing set and it is one of the eeriest moments in this very eerie movie and what a cool little thing to have happened in the movie is to have shown up to see Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Robert Duvall shows up for 30 seconds and then vanishes they had decided Philip Kaufman had decided that he was the first that the character you're seeing is the first snatched body yes something so perfect too about an actor who's known for his intensity and his explosiveness playing a priest who has been turned into a plant alien right that's red though 1978 The Betsy I'd never seen it before bored to tears Tracy so terrible bored to tears I was really kind of looking forward to it I thought it was going to be like camp like a like a like a Russ Meyer Valley of the Dolls I thought there was going to be kind of a camp element to it.

1:32:04Sean Fennessey:What does kind of have some of those qualities? You know, it's directed by Daniel Petrie, who made our beloved Lifeguard just a few years earlier. And yeah, it's based on Harold Robbins' novel. You know, there's some beautiful dames in this movie. There's some sexiness to it, and yet it's like really boring. Early Tommy Lee Jones, Lawrence Olivier. A little miscast, I think, Tommy Lee Jones. Yeah, Lawrence Olivier and Duvall chopping it up. Yeah, Jane Alexander, Catherine Ross. so boring, so hard to watch. Anyway, it's red. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business. Fast, reliable internet means everything for your business and even this podcast.

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1:33:36Sean Fennessey:1979 apocalypse now. Hold on, we got to jump in with Ike the Warriors. He goes back to TV for the first time. Did you watch this? I did not watch. You can't. It's not available. I couldn't find it either. I would like to see this. Yeah, directed by Boris Segal and Melville Shabelson, who also wrote the screenplay. And I guess it's about Eisenhower's relationship to the secretary I'm talking out my ass the character the character played by Lee Remick okay but I don't know I haven't seen it a Remick reunion after the detective yeah right God loved Lee Remick and the detective I did too 1979 Apocalypse Now he plays Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore it's a similarly electrifying scene it's fantastic speech.

1:34:28I've never understood what Duvall had a problem with it, right? The scene, he felt some stuff was cut out.

1:34:37Sean Fennessey:Well, isn't that the story of Apocalypse Now? I mean, how much was cut out of that film? But he felt it was cut out for quote unquote political reasons, that he had tried to give a performance a more nuanced character and that Coppola had cut it and just left in kind of the cartoon stuff. So - I don't read it that way at all. He admired the movie, but he was always a little angry about the cut. I think that character is fascinating about a person who has deluded himself into imagining that he is part of some mystical conquering story, but that last line of dialogue that he has in the film, someday this war is going to end, and then he just walks off screen, I think is such a brilliant choice.

1:35:20Sean Fennessey:I just saw it last, Chris and I saw it last year on 70 at the Egyptian, and we were, I was 14 all over again, man. I was, I'm blown away by it. And I think what that character does, the kind of delusional rock and roll energy that he brings to it with the surfing and taking his jacket and shirt off and he pulls the neckerchief off. Very, very grand and theatrical acting style too. And he doesn't usually do that. And the pauses that he takes between those lines of dialogue, I love it, man. To me, I think this goes in for one and a half scenes. absolutely so totally green uh green let's just do a quick green check here how many greens we got one two three four probably five there's five now probably six actually given some of the yellows that you seem fond of we only have 50 more movies to go so we got to move a little quicker through this all right 1979 the great santini uh directed and written by lewis john carlino based on book by the great Pat Conroy.

1:36:22I rewatched it for this. It's a great performance. Anybody who's ever had a father relates to this movie. Sure does. The performances by the other members, the family, Blythe Danner, Michael O 'Keefe, Lisa Jane Persky, are great. They're really important because the way they play against him is really important. He's not just a monster. He's not just a tyrant. he's a loving dad and they all seem to recognize that uh and he has to do less to scare them right the the way they portray that moment that they realize the line is being crossed with dad the great performances i mean it's always been true though the b story kind of

1:37:05Sean Fennessey:kills it as a movie a little utterly bizarre yeah um where michael o 'keefe's character has a sort of uh you know a secondary experience of the friend played what's the actor's name who he's stan shaw Stan Shaw who's a good actor but that character is a little oddly written and even the way that part of the film is shot where it has this sort of like halo quality to it and everything else is so raw and intense with Duvall's character two sequences the one-on-one game with Michael O 'Keefe and the actual basketball game that O 'Keefe plays in where his father instructs him to take out one of his competitors as powerful today as the first time I saw it very real shit if you had a domineering father I had a very domineering father I really understand this movie.

1:37:48Sean Fennessey:I think it should go in. Great. It's one of his legendary performances. Great. The Great Santini is in the lexicon as like a, this is what tough dads do. 1981 True Confessions. Yet another film I would love to love. Never totally found a place in my heart. Is it Ulu Grossbard? Is he the director of this film? With Rob. Is it Robert De Niro? John Gregory Dunn and Joan Didion. That's right. Based on Dunn's book. Yes. Is it their first screenplay together? I don't know. Schrader was going to take a pass at this at one point and direct and kicked out. I don't know why. Now, that version probably would have spoken to me a little bit more.

1:38:25I've always had some affection for it. I think Duvall's very good in the movie. I think Duvall's kind of the best thing about the movie. I always think an anti-mystery is better the next time you watch it. You go in with a kind of expectation that, oh, this is going to be James Elroy. This is going to be the Black Dahlia. And then you find out, oh, it's not really even about that. That's kind of the backdrop against which the drama is playing out. I watched it again with Carrie. Yeah, it's a little dull. It's a little slow. It doesn't go in. But at the time, there was a real feature in like, I think De Niro and Duvall were held up as like, these are our two best working these days.

1:39:05Sean Fennessey:Yeah, I think it's a movie that I probably watched with a lot of anticipation and never revisited. I'll say it's a red. Yeah. The Pursuit of D.B. Cooper, loosely based on the true story of D.B. Cooper, the airplane hijacker who vanished into the thin air. Treat Williams plays D.B. Cooper. Robert Duvall plays, is he a police officer or an investigator? An insurance investigator? An insurance investigator, yeah. Seeking out D.B. Cooper. Catherine Herald. Whom I love. Yeah. And is very good in this, actually. And she and Duvall are quite good together in their scenes. Did you revisit this? I did.

1:39:35Yeah. So let me tell you quickly some tortured history about this movie. Robert Mulligan, the original director, who directed, of course, To Kill a Mockingbird.

1:39:45Sean Fennessey:Not Richard Mulligan. It took him seven days to film a chase scene in the rapids, and he got fired off the set. John Frankenheimer was brought in. He shot one sequence, and then he was replaced by Buzz Kulik, who finished the film. They brought in Roger Spottiswood to edit the film and to shoot one stunt. And he said, this movie is doomed unless I can shoot new scenes written by Ron Shelton. And apparently the movie we're seeing is 70 % Spottiswood and Shelton and 30 % whatever that mishmash was that goes before. So it's a real, you can kind of feel the jumble as you're watching it. Yes. The stunts are spectacular.

1:40:31Whatever Mulligan was doing, that rapid scene is fantastic.

1:40:35Sean Fennessey:It's really good. I agree. It's funny we didn't mention this when we spoke with The Gambler on yesterday's podcast, but Spottiswood also edited that movie. He edited Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. You know, he went on to be a very successful film director. But Ron Shelton has a very conspicuous associate producer credit in the opening of this film. And when I saw that, I was like, what's that? There are no other producers credited in that fashion. It came like right before the director credit. and so that's not surprising to hear that there is some stuff going on there. Always liked Tree Williams.

1:41:08Sean Fennessey:Always wanted a little bit more for Tree Williams. I think he's a very talented actor. I agree entirely. But this is read, unfortunately. 1983, Tender Mercies. This is the film for which Duvall won his only Academy Award Best Actor, portraying the aging country singer Max Sledge, who's on kind of the downside of his life. One of the quietest and most sensitive films and performances that Duvall ever gave. And I think is one of two or three movies you probably show when you say who was this person as an actor. Would you agree with that? Absolutely. Totally agree. Absolutely. And great movie. In fact, you guys did that episode recently where you played your Oscar Swapo game.

1:41:51Oh, yeah. I'm going to play one here. Okay. I'm going to give the Academy Award for Best Picture to Tender Mercies over terms of endearment.

1:42:01Sean Fennessey:I can't argue with it. I just looked at it again this week. It's a very beautiful movie and I don't have a lot of time for Bruce Beresford's filmography to be honest with you, but this movie I like quite a bit. And you know, Duvall insisted on singing all the songs himself and good that he did. It gives the movie a lot more texture and authenticity. It's a very good film. We got a lot of greens here. We got a lot of movies to go. Now, there's a couple here that I haven't seen. You're going to have to hold my hand through the 1980s, okay? Here we go. 1984, The Stone Boy. What's that? The Stone Boy is directed by Christopher Cain, who is Dean Cain's father.

1:42:36Dean Cain plays a teenager who is shot and killed accidentally by his younger brother. And the younger brother goes into shock and is unable to process what he's done. And Duvall and Glenn Close play the parents of these boys. and Duvall's wife at the time, Gail Youngs, who was John Savage's sister. And Duvall had done American Buffalo on Broadway with John Savage. So there's a relationship there. Gail Youngs is also in the movie. Stone Boy is close to something really good. I don't think it gets there. it's got some thematic challenges but it's close to something good and really with Tender Mercies now it starts earlier than that of course with Tomorrow or something along those lines but with Tender Mercies you start to enter a period where the rural Duval starts to make really regular appearances and movies like Tender Mercies and The Stone Boy that was a kind of rural or country domestic drama that we used to make in this country a lot and that we stopped making.

1:43:56And I don't know where they went. Did they go to Hallmark? Did they go to Netflix? Did they go, they're playing. I think so. I mean, I think Taylor Sheridan is operating in that space. Taylor Sheridan, very much operating in that space. I think it's a real shame. And I don't want to, as a good old hardy lefty liberal, don't want to take the blame for the divide in this country. But I think that the fact that we stopped telling those stories hasn't been great.

1:44:27Sean Fennessey:I think, yeah, the movie's for sure. And you're an Oklahoman, so you know from what you speak. And Duvall played Texans and men from Louisiana. And he was very well known for that. He kind of leaned into that a lot in the last 20 years of his career to the point of maybe a little bit of parody, I think, at times. And yet this family is Montana or Wyoming. And so he's a rural guy. He's wearing a gimme cap and he drives a tractor, but he's not doing that hardcore Texas accent. He's just a guy who lives and works in the country. Okay. Well, maybe I should check it out. I assume it's not going in here.

1:45:00Sean Fennessey:Not going in. He's in The Natural in 1984. I think we've skipped Angelo, my love. We have. I'm only going through acting performances but this is his first Angelo My Love is the first film that he directed that is a scripted feature and it's about the well scripted yeah I guess largely improvised largely improvised but narrative and it's about the is it the Romani people? yeah and I'm fascinated by why he wanted to make this movie. He apparently overheard a conversation. He was working in New York and he overheard a conversation, a lover's quarrel. And then he looks over and he finds that the guy engaged in the lover's quarrel is an eight-year-old boy.

1:45:49And he became interested in this boy. He was working, it was while he was rehearsing American Buffalo. And he would see this boy regularly and he started engaging him in conversation. It's Angelo. He's the kid who's the lead in this movie. And Duvall got to know him and got to know his family and got to know the community and put all these people to work on this movie. Have you seen it? I haven't. It's worth seeing.

1:46:11Sean Fennessey:It's just such an, I mean, every 10 years he's like, I'm going to do something different. A really idiosyncratic choice. Yeah. But it is a very watchable movie. I don't know how the Romani community feels about Robert Duvall being the one who's essentially telling their story, but, and there are some Romany directors of note who would probably like to have the kind of imprint that Robert Duvall has, but it's not a bad movie. Where was it available? Where'd you see it? It was a rewatch for me. Oh, wow. I had actually seen it when it first came out back then in 83. Where did I find it? Maybe YouTube.

1:46:52Maybe I found it on YouTube.

1:46:54Sean Fennessey:Okay. I'll have to dig into that. I don't think it's going in. I agree with you. 1984 The Natural. He plays Max Mercy, the sports writer, who's darn curious about Hobbes' past. Good performance. Good movie. I think I mentioned when we did the Redford draft about Duvall going on Letterman and Letterman suggesting this was a great movie. And Duvall kind of shrugged and said, cute at best. Yeah. I mean, we mentioned it then, too. Never one of my personal favorites. Biggest box office hit he had since Apocalypse Now. Right. Notable. but a very supporting part. Yeah. I'll say red to the natural. What do you say?

1:47:32Sean Fennessey:I say red. Let's get Harry sounded good, but I didn't see it. Well, that's funny. It feels in some ways like a ringer, a movie The Ringer might like. When it starts with these guys and one of their people has been, one of their friends has been kidnapped in a South American country. and the friends are all kind of bemoaning it and then they decide they're going to go get Harry. Those early scenes are so bad. You're like, what the hell is going on? And then Gary Busey shows up. He's a car dealer in the town who's going to finance their trip to get Harry. And then he decides he's a bit of a gun nut.

1:48:13He decides he wants to go along. And then they advertise for a mercenary who's going to help them. And Duvall shows up as the mercenary and he's the real deal. He's a badass. and then you realize, oh, this is a total drive-in movie. Yeah. Made a little after the days of the drive-in, but it's great fun. I mean, Busey and Duvall are both great. This is about a year before Busey, you know, has his accident and scrambles his eggs, but he's still really good. And of course, the drive-ins were done in 1986.

1:48:49Sean Fennessey:Well, it seems to be trying to play in that kind of missing in action zone. Very much. Invasion USA. But it was, I think, a big hit in the video stores. Okay, because its box office is$140 ,000, which ain't very good. But it's a Stuart Rosenberg movie. It's got a... He took his name off it. Rosenberg took his name off it. It's directed by Alan Smithy. No kidding. Yeah. That's so interesting. You know who wrote the story of this movie? Sam Fuller. Yeah, that's right. Sam Fuller wrote the story. Also notable that one of the guys going down to Get Hairy is Glenn Frey. Oh, sure. Eagle's fame. Also, Thomas F.

1:49:23Sean Fennessey:Wilson from Back to the Future. Biff. And Rick Rostovich coming off of Top Gun. I don't know. It's kind of an interesting... Mark Harmon? Anyway, I haven't seen Let's Get Hairy. It's not going in. Belizare the Cajun? Yeah, Belizare the Cajun. Belizare. Belizare. Yeah. Directed by a Cajun director, Glenn Petrie. It was developed at Sundance. And in fact, the movie begins with a graphic saying this movie, before any credits roll, this movie would not be possible without the contributions of Robert Redford and Robert Duvall. They are both put up front and center. So Duvall helped develop this or helped get it to screen.

1:50:00He has one scene as a preacher. It's totally a cameo. His wife, Gail Youngs, at the time, his wife at the time, Gail Youngs, is the female lead in the movie. Belizear is pretty good. You wish there was a bit more Cajun representation in front of the camera, Will Patton and Armand Asante doing some accents. But it's nice that Belazare isn't an ass kicker. It's not like Armand Asante is like this ass kicking action hero. He's more like a Br 'er Rabbit character. He's the medicine man locally. It's not bad. I wish it looked better. I wish they'd had a little more budget. The way it shot, it looks a little like an episode of Walker, Texas Ranger, but it's not going in.

1:50:49It was a rewatch for me too. I watched that back in the day. Look at you. Yeah.

1:50:53Sean Fennessey:And you, what will you famously not watch? Anything. You'll watch Belezer the Cajun for a second time. We're going to get to something I will not watch. Okay, interesting. 1986, The Light Ship. Also missed out on this one. Also a rewatch. Saw it in the movie theaters in 1986. Directed by Jerzy Skolomowski, the great Polish director. Of course. Screenplay by William May and David Taylor, based on a German novella by Siegfried Lenz. The poster for this movie said, good versus evil, life versus death, Robert Duvall versus Klaus Maria Brandauer. That's how they advertised the movie. And as you mentioned, one of your favorites there.

1:51:35I mean, that's how esteemed he was as an actor, that that was going to be a feature. It was the last feature film made by CBS Theatrical Films. CBS had its own division of movie releases. So it was abandoned and picked up a year later by Castle Hill Productions. So it made absolutely no money. Duvall is taking a big swing here. He's playing this Southern character. He's got this kind of sonorous tone that he speaks when he's doing them. It does not work. I'd like to hear you doing some voice work there. Thank you for that. Early performances from William Forsyth and Arliss Howard. playing. Duvall's character shows up on this light ship, which is a ship that doesn't sail.

1:52:20It's a stationary ship for mining purposes, I think. And they show up on a boat. They've lost their ship, Duvall and his two accomplices. And it turns out they're criminals and criminal things happen. It's not a good film. Can I tell you something?

1:52:39Sean Fennessey:Yeah. You're as sharp as ever. I don't know how how the hell you remember all these details? And this is what I do for a living. The light ship is red. Hotel Colonial, I did dip my toes into this story. Oh my God. What in God's name is this film? Okay, directed by Cinzia T.H. Torini. Screenplay by Enzo Montaglioni, Cinzia T.H. Torini, Robert Katz, and Ira Barmak is totally batshit movie. I'm actually going to quote from my own letterboxd comments. Please do. John Savage, wearing white khakis, explores the slums, rivers, and jungles of Columbia, looking for his brother. Robert Duvall is a Colombian drug lord, sporting a gorgeous George hairpiece, an ascot, and a sleeveless shirt.

1:53:24He handles an alligator, two parrots, a falcon, and an anaconda. He massacres spider monkeys with a pump shotgun set to a Pino Donagio score. It's a totally batshit movie. I do not know what anybody was thinking when they made this thing.

1:53:40Sean Fennessey:Well, as you mentioned, John Savage obviously related to Duval's wife at the time. Yeah. And giving a very bewildered performance, I'll say. He's got one emotion the entire film. Duval having the time of his life. Yeah. Not sure I would have cast him as an Argentinian man again. Well, you maybe didn't see the twist at the end. Yeah. There's a twist. And when it happens, the only reason you didn't see it coming is because it's so stupid. but you're like, they couldn't possibly expect me to swallow this. It's not good. Not going in. That's rad. 1988's Colors. Interesting movie. Directed by Dennis Hopper.

1:54:19Sean Fennessey:About two police officers working in South Central Los Angeles. Duvall is the veteran opposite rookie Sean Penn.

1:54:30Sean Fennessey:A movie that I like, don't love. I think Duvall's performance is very good. There's a very famous scene in the movie, the two bulls story that he tells. It is oft-repeated. I wouldn't say it's among the most hallowed of the Duvall performances, but it's good. I think Dennis Hopper directed several other better movies, personally. Shot by Haskell Wexler, which is notable. Yeah, no, I don't think it's going in. I don't know, man. There's not a lot of accountability for the LAPD in this movie. And we've seen in the years since that LAPD could have used a little more scrutiny, perhaps. I mean, think about the timing when this was released.

1:55:12Sean Fennessey:I mean, I think there's some intentionality there. You know, it's not like the film doesn't realize specifically what it's showing. But yeah, Colors is a no. I did not see a show of force. I did. It's an excellent title for a film. It is. It's not a very good movie. It's directed by Bruno Barreto, who was a Brazilian filmmaker who made, I think he made Dona Flora and her two husbands. He was married to Amy Irving at the time, who lives in my little town where I live in New York. Oh, nice. And they made this movie together, Andy Garcia, Lou Diamond Phillips, early fat Kevin Spacey. Careful. It's thrill.

1:55:52What? Come and get you. You haven't met? It's a thriller based on a real-life case in which undercover American agents framed Puerto Rican political activists as terrorists, then murdered them. So it's based on a true story. She's a TV reporter, and Duvall is her TV news editor. Almost all of his scenes take place in the news office. It's not great. Duvall is doing some pretty standard stuff here.

1:56:19Sean Fennessey:Got it. Let's make that red. 1990 Days of Thunder. I think this will be the film that many people who listen to this podcast first saw Robert Duvall in. Have we skipped The Handmaid's Tale? I had that coming right after Days of Thunder. Have we skipped Lonesome Dove? We have. Let's talk about Lonesome Dove. It's in. It's green. I agree that it's green. This is the rare... Is Lonesome Dove the greatest miniseries in the history of television? Yes. Is there more you want to say about Gus and what Duvall does in that series? He's spectacular. He elevates the art form of television acting. It's a remarkable performance.

1:56:57Sometimes the miniseries itself does not transcend its TV-bound production style. Certainly the casting of Frederick Forrest as Blue Duck is just an embarrassment. And I think maybe only five years later would not have happened that way. So that's too bad. but the performances there are a lot of good performances in it but Duvall is really something

1:57:25Sean Fennessey:yeah he and Tommy Lee together Duvall's final scene is one of the great scenes in the history of television and his performance is just tremendously real and if you've ever been with someone near the end of their life it is bizarrely real how sincere and great that is okay Lonesome Dove is in we're getting very low on greens here my friend we got one two two, three, four, five, six, seven. How much time do we have? How are we on time? Not very good. Oh, good. We have eight greens. We have like 50 movies. We're going to go more quickly. Days of Thunder, you know, not one of my Tony Scott movies.

1:57:58Sean Fennessey:I'm a Tony Scott aficionado. I'm a huge fan of his work. Feels like a mascot movie for this channel. Very much. The Ringer loves this film. I was not on the Rewatchables episode of this movie. Also a Tom Cruise aficionado. I think it's perfectly fine. Cole Trickle, wonderful name from Eagle Rock, California, not far from where I live right now. Um, Duvall plays kind of the leader of the pit crew, the coach, the sage figure in Cole's life. He's good as Harry, you know. Paycheck. Paycheck. Okay. Red. I mean, right. It's, I think it's maybe when you look over his filmography, I think maybe it's his first big paycheck.

1:58:40Big, big paycheck.

1:58:41Sean Fennessey:Interesting. I mean, that makes sense. Right. It's Simpson, Bruckheimer. They're doing top dollar for everything. they needed to confer a level of dignity. I watched it for the first time for this. No kidding. Because not my... Didn't like it? It's fine. It's not my flavor. Yeah. Okay. 1990 The Handmaid's Tale. F1 sure owes a lot to Days of Thunder. Oh, no kidding. I mean, it knows... Well, yeah. I mean, Jerry Bruckheimer. Same producer. 1990 The Handmaid's Tale. It's a turkey. Yeah. Carol Reese Rice Yes. was developing the script with Harold Pinter. Then they wouldn't allow Carol Reese to shoot the big crowd scenes he wanted to shoot, so he quit.

1:59:24And so Volker Schlondorf came on as director and wanted Harold Pinter to make some changes. And Pinter, by that point, had been working on it for a long time and got exhausted by it. It was like, go to Margaret Atwood and have her make the changes. Oh, interesting. Anyway, it just wound up in a whole kind of script hell. And it's a mess. It's just a mess.

1:59:44Sean Fennessey:it's a shame it's fascinating because no one will ever watch it now because it has been adapted into an acclaimed and long running television show but it's the same Handmaid's Tale that we know but it's read he does play Commander critical character in that film and he's good again he's always good it's a mess of a movie 1991 Martha Coolidge's Rambling Rose really good have you seen it? I have seen it um It's Laura Dern's first true star part. I was trying to think about that. I think it's after Smooth Talk. You're right. It is after Smooth Talk. But one of her best performances, Duvall is also terrific in this movie as a kind of patriarch.

2:00:24Sean Fennessey:I think his character's name is Daddy. And Diane Ladd, who was... Real-life mother. Real-life mother. And they were the first mother-daughter nominated for Oscars in the same year for this. It would probably go in the Laura Dern Hall of Fame. I don't know if it would go in the Robert Duvall Hall of Fame. I agree. Written by Calder Willingham, who wrote The Graduate. Oh. Yeah. I did not know that. Yeah. Based on a novel of his. I recommend this movie, but not for the Duvall Hall. Right. 91 Convicts, haven't seen it. Horton Foote. Horton Foote joint. Robert Duvall, James Earl Jones, Lucas Haas. Really good.

2:01:00It doesn't—its origins are in the theater. It's directed by Peter Masterson, and it feels like a theater piece. But Duvall, doing a cantankerous Southern guy, finds some new colors. It's like he's not just trotting out standard-issue cantankerous Southern guy. He finds some colors in there that he doesn't normally. James Earl Jones, always great. It's worth a watch.

2:01:33Sean Fennessey:Won't be the last time they come together. Yeah. That's going to be a red. 1992 Newsies. You finally hit on one I haven't seen. No kidding. Never seen Newsies. You know, I've been thinking about whether or not I should show this one to my kid. It's a Disney musical. Right. Perhaps best known for launching Christian Bale into the public, more wider consciousness after Empire of the Sun. Um, it's about newspaper boys and it's a very vivacious movie, a movie that much loved by many millennials and, and a bomb at the time, right? Not a hit, but a movie that got a lot of burn on VHS and video stores and on the Disney channel when I was a kid, for sure.

2:02:13Sean Fennessey:Um, he plays Pulitzer, the, uh, famed journalist. And, um, it's not going in. I don't know. Maybe your kids would like it. Okay. It's got energy. It's got, it's got zest. 1992 The Plague I haven't seen this film another Argentinian production yeah directed by Luis Puenzo who just died yesterday day before director of The Official Story which is a great movie it just doesn't work it's such a did you watch this? I did it's such a serious slog there's a lot of like wailing on the soundtrack it's hyper serious self-series William Hurt Raul Julia reunited from Kiss the Spider-Man Sandrine Bonaire who was William Hurt's wife at the time Duvall and a lot of like restatement of Camus philosophy doesn't work right 1993 Falling Down you're skipping Stalin 1992 TV movie I watched it TV miniseries This was watched in my home when I was a child.

2:03:29Sean Fennessey:And it was on. I don't think I was paying direct attention to the entire thing, but I remember my parents watching this. It's not nothing. Yep. It's directed by Ivan Passer. It is written by Paul Monash, who wrote our beloved Friends of Eddie Coyle. It's shot by Vilmos Zygmunt. And co-stars Julia Orman, Joan Plowright, Jerome Crabbe, if that's how you say his name. made for HBO. First thing ever filmed in the Kremlin as part of Gorbachev's... He decided that that would be allowed, so they filmed in the Kremlin. Very important for America to tell a Stalin story. People was very proud of this performance.

2:04:11Now, the movie itself is a bit of Stalin for dummies or Russia for dummies, and I don't know that it always focuses on the thing it should be focused on. Some of the palace intrigue and shit, it's like, really? We're really going to get bogged down in this stuff? Duvall's really extraordinary in it. Unfortunately, he's been fitted with a kind of a mask, a cowl, which hides the upper half of his face. And it's really too bad because the accent sounds good. He's working his ass off, and he was proud of it. And the Russians apparently found the whole movie laughable, but they loved Duvall in it. And Duval got asked to play a lot of Russian characters after he did it.

2:04:56He's very good in it. You wish the whole enterprise were better. It's worth a watch.

2:05:03Sean Fennessey:I don't know when I'm going to watch that, but I'm going to think about it. It's not going in. No. 1993, Falling Down. I watched this for the first time in preparation for this draft. A film I've seen at least a dozen times in my life. Wow. It was on cable all the time when I was a kid. Wow. And to a young mind, very transgressive work of art. Looking back, kind of a dumb movie. Kind of dumb, right? I mean, there's some interesting ideas, I think, in the early part of the movie. But it just kind of descends into, I don't know why, just like a cop show by the end of it. Yeah, I mean, in no small part because of Duvall's character who plays kind of the most ordinary thing about the movie.

2:05:47Sean Fennessey:Yeah. He's great. He's very good. and as like a once again playing a kind of weathered LAPD detective. The opening moments of the movie I think are like fascinating and electrifying where a man who is a middle class, you know, pocket protector grunt gets fed up with traffic and just exits his car and leaves his car in the middle of the road and sets upon a journey across Los Angeles on one very hot and unpleasant day. And it kind of shows like a man at his breaking point, Michael Douglas doing something very off type for him. But a lot of the episodes that he experiences as he goes through the world just feel like very stupid 101 psychology or sociology about how communities operate.

2:06:34Sean Fennessey:It's also like, why is this movie being seen through the eyes of like a middle-aged white guy? But I've seen it many times. Not to mention, you've got Lois Smith, Barbara Hershey, Amy Morton, Rachel T. Cotin. you've got these great actors, actresses in this thing, and they're given nothing to, Barbara, she's given nothing to do. Yeah. Didn't even remember she was in it. Falling Down's Red. Wrestling Ernest Hemingway. Never seen it. I've seen it. Starts in association with Randa Haynes, which she produced a couple of other things he's in. It's the, again, it's an odd period of casting where he could play a Cuban man.

2:07:11That's right. He's Latino for sure. it's Richard Harris's movie it's a shame too because of the brown face the movie won't be considered and I understand that Richard Harris is doing some good work he's got Richard Harris has a couple of really heartbreaking scenes in Wrestling Earnest I didn't re-watch it for this I remember from original but not going in that's right

2:07:35Sean Fennessey:Geronimo an American legend he plays Al Sieber a kind of unfortunate figure in American history. I didn't re-watch this movie. I have seen it. Walter Hill's portrait of the Native American hero and Resister. I don't... For Duvall purposes, you know, I'm not sure. It's an interesting movie. It's a... It's not terribly insensitive, as I recall, to the legend of Geronimo. It's not insensitive, but they sure make claims that it's somewhat the story of Geronimo seen from Geronimo's perspective. It's like, it's not really. There's a lot of white guys, yeah. There's a lot of Jason Patrick and Matt Damon talking about stuff.

2:08:19Sean Fennessey:Yeah, and it was sold on that too. I mean, despite the poster, like if you look at the trailer of the movie, you'll see they want you to come see the white guys talk about fighting the Native American hero. That's red. 1994 is the paper. A lot of people are going to fight for this movie. A lot of people like this movie. I never got it. I never was interested in it. I always thought it was just absolute poppycock. but I know it's a comfort movie for a lot of people also a lot of people who work here who are very fond of it I do think Duvall is very good in it though there are likable things about this movie some likable performances screenplay by the Keps David and Steven but there's also like a physical fight between Michael Keaton and Glenn Close it's like this is stupid the ending of the movie I find very silly but as the kind of worn down but very world weary newspaper editor Bernie White.

2:09:10Sean Fennessey:He's like a very credible New York figure for a guy who's playing these rural Southerners or, you know, folks from 300 years ago. You pretty much buy him as somebody running the New York Post or running the New York Daily News. There is so much in the paper that is lifted from the front page. No credit is paid to the front page. That's a shame. It's too bad. Okay, that's red. 95, something to talk about. Supporting part in this Julia Roberts dramedy about a woman experiencing significant change in her life. It's a fine movie. Great theme song. Based on, I read the, they wrote the movie after the song was a hit.

2:09:52I saw it at the time. It made no impression on me whatsoever. Right. The Stars Fell on Henrietta. I haven't seen this one. I watched this one for the draft. It's a sweet movie. It's got a sweet disposition directed by James Keech written by Philip Railsback. Maybe the first time that Billy Bob and Duvall work together. That becomes an important collaboration. It's not bad. Duvall is doing something a little, again, he's finding a slightly different color. There's a, this character is a bit of a trickster. There's something a bit more whimsical going on with this guy. It's certainly red.

2:10:29Sean Fennessey:1995, The Scarlet Letter. I saw that you watched this for the first time. Just yesterday. This movie is directed by Roland Joffe and stars at a very critical time in her career, Demi Moore. And it has the line, God, how I've wanted to poke you, which is, I don't think, in the book. Well, we've got Hawthorne here. Let's bring him in. Nathaniel, was that in the original text? I've seen that Gary Oldman has stepped out in some defense of this movie saying, yeah, I know it was a big bomb, but there's some good work in there. I watched it. I watched it when it was released. It's incredibly dull and overdrawn.

2:11:13You know, good people, good artists, great artists come together with the best of intentions and sometimes it doesn't happen. It's hard to make a great movie. That's right.

2:11:25Sean Fennessey:Just look at this episode, you know? We're doing our best. Exactly. The Scarletters read Sling Blade. now you mentioned the influence that Tomorrow had on this movie this like a few other films here pretty influential in me getting interested in films outside of the standard summer blockbusters that were easy for kids to get interested in and this movie was a huge story at the time the emergence of a new voice a writer director star Academy Award nominated Duvall plays a critical part he had a kind of I've seen like a godfather kind of relationship with Billy Bob. Yeah. I didn't revisit for this episode, but I remember him having like a critical but modest part in the movie, right?

2:12:14Sean Fennessey:That's my recollection. Carl's dad. I don't think it's going in the Hall of Fame. I don't either. 1996, a family thing. I watched that just the other night for this. I saw this when it came out. There's some intriguing ideas. It's fun to watch Duvall. Again, we talked about high status, low status. He's definitely the lower status character when he's with James Earl Jones. There's some good acting going on in here. James Earl Jones is great. Richard Pierce? Irma P. Hall, yeah. And written by Billy Bob Thornton and Tom Epperson. Yes. It gets a little impatient or something midway through and plotty things start happening and characters don't always behave in a way that seems true to them.

2:12:56It's not a bad time. I enjoyed it. It's not a Hall of Fame. Family Thing is Red. 1996 phenomenon. Didn't see it, haven't seen it. We're going to start to hit a patch here pretty soon where I haven't seen much.

2:13:07Sean Fennessey:I mean, I didn't revisit this movie. I saw this movie in movie theaters when it was released. It was in the re-boom of John Travolta where he plays a man who is touched with extraordinary intelligence and telekinesis and all of these extraordinary powers. Duvall in the movie plays Doc, who is sort of like a father figure to him and kind of protects him and believes him through this big change that's happening in this small town. Kind of trading on some of his folksy appeal. Directed by John Turtletaub. Probably best known for the National Treasure movies. It's definitely not going in. 1997, The Apostle.

2:13:42Sean Fennessey:I think there's a case for this one. Before we get to The Apostle, 1996, The Man Who Captured Eichmann. Yes. I watched that. HBO film? I think TNT. TNT. Okay. Directed by William Graham. Written by Lionel Chetwind. Where are you at on Eichmann? Pro? Anti? I'm not submitting to the tyranny of your questions. Duvall plays Eichmann, and Arliss Howard plays the Mossad agent who captures Eichmann. And most of the movie, 70 % of the movie, is the two of them in a room. After Eichmann's been captured, as the Israelis are waiting to find a way to get him out of the country, most of it is a dialogue between the two of them.

2:14:29And it's very good. It's very good. It's very interesting dialogue. You know, when Hannah Arendt wrote about the banality of evil, it's Eichmann that she's talking about. And so that idea is being explored. He was trying to position himself as not only just following orders, but he's trying to say, I was following the law. What I was doing was just following the laws of my country. and Arliss Howard, who has lost a relative in the Holocaust, he's not even supposed to talk to him, but he winds up engaging him in this discussion. And the movie sort of plays with the line of, is he just a civil servant?

2:15:16Or in fact, was he a virulent racist anti-Semite? Asks that question. it's a compelling watch and Duvall's great he's great at it where did you watch this? Apple TV paid for it on Apple TV

2:15:32Sean Fennessey:that's nice that you would patronize that fine company Spotify will be getting my receipt 1997 The Apostle he was the writer, director and producer of this movie about a preacher who loses control does something terrible and then disappears and moves to a new community and effectively launches a new mission, a new church, where he is in the anonymous preacher EF, the apostle EF. Amazing movie. I just looked at it again yesterday. You know, imperfect for sure. Long-time passion project of his. I think he wrote the screenplay first in 1983 and had been trying to get it off the ground for years and years, and he paid for it himself.

2:16:18Sean Fennessey:He financed the movie. It sounds like he financed, at least in part the other two previous films that he had worked on as well. And he really put his money where his mouth was on a lot of these things. But this one kind of rose to the surface a bit more and got a lot of attention. He was Oscar nominated for his performance in it. I think it's a really fascinating and clearly very personal story about good people doing bad things and then how do you live with yourself. And I think it's interesting. It's green for me. Okay, well, that makes it pretty easy. 1998, The Gingerbread Man. I've seen this movie.

2:16:50Sean Fennessey:Robert Altman directed it. It's an adaptation of a John Grisham novel. So weird. Cannot remember Robert Duvall even being in it. It's so weird. It just doesn't even feel like an Altman movie. I don't know. No. This is a paycheck movie. It's very strange. And I did hear on the special features here when I watched it, Altman saying that he had been trying to get Duvall back since they had made MASH. But Duvall was just always booked. He wanted him to be in Nashville. But Duvall was just always booked. Couldn't get him. Wow. Who does he play in Nashville? That's interesting. I don't know. that's a game I'll play with myself tonight The Gingerbread Man is not going in 1998 A Civil Action also Oscar nominated for this performance he plays opposing counsel in a case a civil suit from a group of families who have been affected by what seems like the drinking water due to a corporation that has been polluting in their community and And Duvall is like a practical evil, you know?

2:17:53Sean Fennessey:That sort of like plaintive, plain spoken, here's how things are kind of character opposite John Travolta. Again, they just worked together two years earlier. And John Travolta is a little bit miscast in this movie. He's supposed to be kind of like a slick personal injury lawyer. But there's a little bit too much like inherent decency in John Travolta that like you never buy the first half of the movie. There's a real lack of specificity about Travolta's character. It's an odd thing, an odd choice. Especially what happens, given what happens to him in the movie. Yeah, it's an odd choice that Zellian has made to not have more information about just who that guy is.

2:18:27Because by the end of the movie, it was like, oh, we were supposed to be tracking the changes in him, but he doesn't seem like the thing. Duvall does something really interesting here. I mean, this character of the opposing counsel, right? Oh, he's the angel of death. He's the one who's going to—we know that character so well. James Mason, Billy Bob Thornton in The Judge coming out, right? That's right. He's always George C. Scott in... In Her at the Wind? No, no, no. George C. Scott with Jimmy Stewart in...

2:18:58Sean Fennessey:Oh, Anatomy of a Murder? Anatomy of a Murder, right? And yet Duvall plays against all those types, right? He's this idiosyncratic guy who steals a croissant from the breakfast table, steals a pen. Yeah, that's why I say practical. There's like something small about what he's supposed to represent there. It's one of the few things about the movie that I think is unique. Although the whole structure, the movie's very strange because of what happens to the Travolta character and the case itself that feels kind of brave in its way, but also makes the movie feel very small. This is a huge Christmas movie produced by Scott Rudin.

2:19:34Sean Fennessey:You know, it was a big old fancy thing that kind of has slipped away completely from the culture. It was hard to find. I had to buy it on Apple TV again. I couldn't find it. Okay, it's red. Deep Impact. Watch that for the first time. It's not my, it's not my, it's not my flavor. Deep Impact is best known as the other film that wasn't Armageddon from 1998, the other apocalyptic world-ending saga. I've always found Deep Impact to be pretty solid, honestly. It's well done. Yeah. It's well done. It's very sincere. It's like, it takes the material seriously, I think, in a way that a lot of these movies didn't.

2:20:08Sean Fennessey:And I liked Armageddon as a teenager, and now I, I watched Deep Impact maybe like 10 years ago with my wife and we were like because we had skipped it when we were kids and I don't know I think we both felt like it wasn't bad my favorite scene in the movie is Duvall with our our blind astronaut the astronaut who's lost his sight oh come on see we've gotten late enough I haven't had enough protein I'm starting to lose my proper nouns and Duvall sits with the blind astronaut and starts to read him Moby Dick. It's a very gentle scene between the two of them. It's my favorite scene in the movie. It's really good.

2:20:47Who's the lead? Who's the lead? Is it Ron Eldard? Ron Eldard. Thank you.

2:20:53Sean Fennessey:Sorry, Ron. Couldn't think of your name. Sorry, Ron. Deep Impact's not going in. I'll tell you what, Gone in 60 Seconds is also not going in. Never seen it. Saw the original. Haven't seen it. Slick, stylish, kind of fun, heist action movie from Dominic Senna starring Nicolas Cage. Once again, Duvall playing kind of like the old guy who hangs out in the, you know, he's like the mechanic who's, you know, they're part of the team, but not actually on the cases. It's not going in. The sixth day, you watched it. I don't remember seeing this. I'm sure I saw it back in the day as an Arnold fan. It's not good.

2:21:25You know, you take this high concept of, there's a great scene where it's about cloning, right? The concept has to do with cloning and Arnold shows up at his house and it's his birthday and he looks in the window and he sees himself celebrating his birthday with his family. And he realizes he's been cloned and this guy is the guy who's replaced him. It's an intriguing concept. And then the chase is on. The concept kind of gets thrown out the window and suddenly everybody's just chasing each other and shooting at each other. It's like, well, what did you even need the original concept for? You know who made this movie?

2:22:00Roger Spottiswood. Roger Spottiswood. Back in the saddle. Tony Goldwyn, by the way, playing the exact same character he plays in one battle after another, except it's 25 years earlier and he hasn't changed a bit. It's just like he walked from the set of The Sixth Day on the set of One Battle After Another. How's it possible? Part of what makes him great.

2:22:21Sean Fennessey:That's part of what makes him great. He's never aging, always sort of malevolent in a way. Sixth Day is not going in. I don't know what A Shot at Glory is. A Shot at Glory is a story about Scottish football. Oh. And it was apparently a real pet project of Duvall's for a long time. And he plays a Scottish football manager. And now, I don't know anything about Scottish football. Apparently, there are some football stars in this movie. I don't know who the hell they are. I kind of enjoyed it. Okay. It's kind of, It's a real, it's about as gentle a sports movie as you'll ever find. Michael Keaton is also in the movie.

2:23:07He plays the owner of the team. Wow. Why is... Yeah, Brian Cox, Cole Hauser. Pretty good. Really good time. He looks good in that chapeau. And, you know, on the letterbox, some people were bitching about his accent. And I got to say, go to hell. Okay. Because... Let's hear some of your Scottish accent. You're not only not going to hear it, I will tell you that it's hard to do. And it's certainly hard to do when you have to do it in Scotland on a set with 200 Scottish people gathered around you. And you're going to make a speech in their dialect, an emotional speech in their dialect. Have you considered this?

2:23:43Don't take the part. Well, that's just it. Gene Hackman's not taking the part. There are a lot of actors of Duvall's stature and time period who would not take on something like that. Or Stalin.

2:23:57Sean Fennessey:Or a lot of the other things we're talking about. It's a great point. He was pretty fearless in terms of the range that he was pursuing. Shot of glory is not going in. 2002, another cop in another emotional drama. John Q. Never seen it. Denzel Washington movie. I think about a man who takes a hospital hostage because they can't get treatment for his son, as I recall. I haven't seen this in a while. Nick Cassavetes, John Cassavetes, his son directed the movie. not a bad drama but not going in the Hall of Fame 2002 another film that he directed wrote and produced Assassination Tango you watched this?

2:24:33Sean Fennessey:I did watch this last night curious film some interesting stuff I didn't see this upon release Duvall got married a fourth time to an Argentinian woman was Luciana Perazzo and Pedrazo and he fell in love with the Tango yeah and so he wrote this movie about a hitman who finds himself in Argentina and kind of falls in love with the tango. Very curious. He really followed his light. He did. You wish at some point the two stories intersected. Yeah. They just sort of travel down parallel channels. There's the tango story and there's the assassin story. And they never cross over, which is I think maybe just a mistake.

2:25:22Sean Fennessey:As opposed to The Apostle, which is kind of expansive but not shaggy, this is a very shaggy movie. A lot of scenes where you're like, they're playing it very loose. Even the camera is a little shaky when you're watching it. But anyway, I'm glad I saw it. I love that scene where the guy makes a comment, the cop makes a comment about his face. He cuts back to him. He's like, what do you say, I'm old? Yeah. He's like, I got wrinkles? It's great stuff. Really good. 2003, Gods and Generals. Now, I did watch this when it came out. This is one I won't watch. Because you feel this is Ted Turner polishing Confederate history.

2:25:59Yeah. Okay, understood. I don't have time for your revisionist trash. Mine? Not yours. Ted Turner's are the people who made these movies. I don't want to watch these Confederate losers doing anything.

2:26:13Sean Fennessey:This is kind of a sequel to Gettysburg, and he plays Robert E. Lee. Get the hell out of here. Okay, it's red. But 2003 Secondhand Lions is a movie about a 13-year-old boy who goes to stay with two great uncles, played by Robert Duvall and Michael Caine. And Haley Joel Osment plays the 14-year-old boy coming off of an extraordinary run of The Sixth Sense and AI. Yeah. And I remember this movie being perfectly charming. Perfectly fine. It is perfectly charming. There's a scene at the end with Josh Lucas, who I believe is the little boy grown up, right? Yes. And then he's the little boy grown up, and he has an interaction with the sheriff played by Dennis Letts.

2:26:57Sean Fennessey:No kidding. My dad is in the movie Second Hand Lines. I did not know that. There you go. Small part. Date player. Wow. Did he ever meet Duvall? He didn't. Okay. He was sad about that. 2003 Open Range. Now we're talking. What an ass kicker. Yeah. Yeah, love this movie. Just great. I was, just great. I know. If ever you doubted whether or not Costner had some juice. And just, I won't do it for you here, but just go look at the IMDB or the Letterboxd, like two, three things he did before this or two or three things he did after this. And this sits in the middle. I mean, it's just a gem. It's just great.

2:27:35Sean Fennessey:Terrific Western, you know, late period for both of them in many ways. but the final 40 minutes of this movie is just riveting Western action. Um, really well staged, a good, good Duvall performance playing a similar kind of mode of like the older hand who's helping the younger hand through whatever the showdown is going to be. Um, I don't know if it's going in, but it's a darn good movie. Yellow. Okay. Yellow. Good idea. 2005 kicking and screaming. Another movie that I think a lot of people who are listening are like, is kicking and screaming going in. Um, this is a soccer comedy, not a Scottish film, starring Will Ferrell.

2:28:14Sean Fennessey:I think it's fine. To me, this is when the bloom comes off the rose with Ferrell a little bit. You know, a little too childlike and slapsticky for me. But I know people like it. I'm going to say red. 2005, Jason Reitman's Thank You for Smoking. I forget, who does Duvall play in this? I've certainly seen this movie. Have you seen it? I've seen it too. I don't remember Robert Duvall in the movie Thank You for Smoking. Does he play a key leader in one of the tobacco companies? I feel like he might have. That sounds right. No, he plays the founder of the Academy for Tobacco Studies, a man named Captain.

2:28:49Sean Fennessey:Not going in the Hall of Fame. 2007, Lucky You, on paper, should be one of the most important movies in my life. Haven't seen it. Set in the world of high-stakes poker. Eric Bana plays a character named Huck clearly somewhat modeled on Huck Seed who is a I think modeled on Huck Seed I assume Huck Seed was playing poker at that time why else would you name this character Huck whose father is also a big time poker player a legendary poker player played by Robert Duvall it's like one part romantic drama with Drew Barrymore one part kind of father son poker drama and it's directed by Curtis Hansen and it's loosely based on what's the Warren Beatty Elizabeth Taylor film is the only game in town is that what it's called George Stevens movie from 1970 and it's like a soft remake of that and it just doesn't it doesn't work at all it's a big disappointment don't know it it's out 2007 I think we've skipped Broken Trail you're right we have made for TNT yes very good western directed by Walter Hill Robert Duvall Thomas Hayden Church really good really good very very good originally conceived as a movie it's ultimately basically a three hour movie you can watch it that way it happened on blu-ray I like it it was the first movie ever made actually for AMC the first like official project made and it was quite a big deal made of it and you know they all got Golden Globe nominations and it was pretty celebrated but if we're giving a western from this period it's open range before it's broken and what criticism it got was this feels like a little bit of rehashing some of the same territory as Lonesome Dove.

2:30:32Sean Fennessey:2007, my pal James Gray's We Own the Night. I think it's my favorite James Gray movie. It's up there for me too. It's once again playing a kind of patriarch of a family. Is it a couple of cops? Yeah. And he was a cop. He's a cop and his son is a cop but one of the sons is not a cop. It's the godfather in reverse. you know solid Duvall performance good work really good I really like this movie I don't think it's going in the hall of fame 2008 four Christmases you seen it why didn't you see it I don't even know what the fuck it is the level of detail that you spoke about so many of these other movies that no one will ever see you had such depth on show of force four Christmases I mean the title is not a turn on for me are you in a war against Christmas no I just four Christmases I think it means because they go I tell you what get one Christmas right then you can make four I've been trying all my life I I'm not a huge fan of the movie it's a it's a it's a studio comedy starring Vince Vaughn and Reese Witherspoon yeah I don't need to see that Robert Duvall plays a what you got something against Reese Witherspoon I don't have anything against anybody I just don't need to see it you know who likes this movie Chris Ryan.

2:31:58Great. It's red. Did Chris Ryan watch 50-plus Duvall movies? I don't think so.

2:32:06Sean Fennessey:Staking your claim once more for third charity. 2009 Crazy Heart. This is a movie that might have... Just watched. Watched it as I was coming here. Just watched it. In the car. Well, basically. Okay. I don't know if this movie exists without Robert Duvall, according to Scott Cooper, who was a working actor, who met Duval on the set of Gods and Generals, and they struck up a friendship. Duval brought him under his wing, it sounds like a little bit, two Virginians. Duval read all of his scripts, just really mentored Scott Cooper. And Crazy Heart, in a lot of ways, is a soft remake of Tender Mercies.

2:32:45Sean Fennessey:And so he comes on in a part to support him in this film. Jeff Bridges wins an Academy Award for his role as Bad Blake, which is, you know, Scott Cooper seems like a nice guy whose movies I never totally click with to be honest with you. A couple of them here and there I enjoy but I always feel like they're a little bit overwrought. But he always gets good performances out of his actors. And he gets them in this movie. Bridges and Evolve both terrific in this. Yeah. If it were Jeff Bridges' Hall of Fame it definitely would be going in but it's not. 2009 The Road. Didn't see it. Really? Haven't seen it.

2:33:16Sean Fennessey:Read about on Cormac McCarthy. You care? Yeah. He's not at the top of my pyramid, but sure, I care. You want to do the top of your pyramid three hours into this episode? I don't. The road, he plays the old man, so that's a modest part. The truth is, we're starting now to get into old man territory. And he just, there's less he can physically do. He hurt himself on a horse while they were shooting open range. He fell off a horse and hurt himself. And he was mad and he was embarrassed and he didn't want to ride horses so much anymore. And just what you come across as aging, right? It's a 72-year-old man making open range.

2:34:04It's no joke. But he really is with Crazy Heart. You start to feel, right? I mean, what is he, 80 years old when he makes Crazy Heart?

2:34:11Sean Fennessey:Just about, 78, maybe 79. Get Low is an interesting movie, though. Have you seen that one? I saw it this morning. Okay, pretty good. I liked it. Yeah, I liked it a lot. I think if you were going to make a case for a late period film, this might be the one you would pick. I think it's good. I wish it had stuck to the stoic tone it strikes at the beginning of the movie throughout the movie. It's a little goofy. It gets a little saccharine toward the end. But, God damn, he's great. Bill Murray's great. Sissy Spacek, I always make the case on these podcasts that she's an underrated actress. She's great in the film.

2:34:48Yeah, I like to get low quite a bit.

2:34:50Sean Fennessey:Okay. We'll give Getlow a yellow. Seven Days in the Utopia I haven't seen. Didn't see it. Well, we're going to skip right over that one. Jane Mansfield's Car. Didn't see it. This is a Billy Bob Thornton film. Less acclaimed than some of his previous work. But once again, Duvall plays a patriarch. Jim Caldwell, I saw this in 2012. I don't have a strong memory of it. I do have a strong memory of seeing Jack Reacher in theaters. Didn't see it. Haven't seen it. It's certainly not going into Robert Duvall Hall of Fame. Kind of an entertaining movie though. I think we skipped Hemingway and Gellhorn, which was made for HBO with Clive Owen.

2:35:26Who does he play? Apparently, it's a very small part. Like, maybe. Oh, yes.

2:35:31Sean Fennessey:He's listed as Russian general, to your point about being asked to play Russian characters. 2014, A Night in Old Mexico. Haven't seen it. What is A Night in Old Mexico? Oh, yes. Okay. He has A Night in Old Mexico. He sure does. A financially strapped but proud senior citizen and his estranged grandson find themselves targeted by drug dealers in search of a missing money bag. Hate when that happens. That's not going in. 2014 The Judge. You watched this. I did. I had not seen it. I watched it.

2:36:06There are good things about The Judge. movies Hollywood movies at some point entered into a period where I got skeptical of a lot of Hollywood filmmaking a lot of tropes of Hollywood filmmaking but there's good stuff inside The Judge I think it's one of my favorite Robert Downey Jr. performances. I really do I think Mr. Duvall brings out the best in Robert Downey Jr. There are a couple of scenes they have in this movie when it gets really specific, what's happened between these two characters. And they're able to, they're not just archetypes. They're able to access real information, specific information about who these people are, where they've come from, what they want, what they wanted, how they were disappointed.

2:36:58They're really effective scenes. I like that Duvall was nominated for this movie because it doesn't feel like just, oh, let's give the old man another nomination. I mean, I think he's really doing something. I think he's giving a real performance here.

2:37:14Sean Fennessey:Yeah, I wish the movie itself was a little bit better. Well, the courtroom stuff is just, I was like, come on, have you ever spent 30 minutes in a courtroom? If you have, you know this is all bullshit. Yeah, it's very dopey. A little bit of a letdown too because this was the movie that Duke Downey basically got made that was like a passion project in the aftermath of so much Marvel success. And it was like, this? He hasn't really made a lot of good movies, real movies, non-IP movies in the last 20 years. This is one of the precious few, and it's okay. He's good in the film. I love Vera Farmiga.

2:37:52Vincent D 'Onofrio, very good. But, oh my God, Jeremy Strong, playing the autistic character is such a mistake, such a misfire. These things keep happening. Narratively, it's a real misfire.

2:38:10Sean Fennessey:Yeah. 2015, he wrote and directed a film called Wild Horses, which I've not seen. Haven't seen it. Well, we can't speak to it. That's a shame. I haven't seen In Dubious Battle either. I haven't seen it. So that's not going to go in. 2018 Widows, you just saw it for the first time. I did. My wife is in it. We watched it for the first time. What did you think of Duval? I thought he was good yeah couple of scenes powerful power broker in Chicago right powerful old guy not going in the Hall of Fame no 12 Mighty Orphans have you seen this film I haven't I watched this pretty sure I watched this during COVID is it about a football team it is about a football team Luke Wilson plays a football coach in Texas during the Great Depression who inspires and gets his team into shape and they they win in exciting and inspiring fashion.

2:39:00Great.

2:39:01Sean Fennessey:Not going in. 2022 Hustle. Didn't see it. Another sports movie, an Adam Sandler drama that I kind of like about an NBA scout. I would see it. I just ran out of time. I saw a lot. You did the work. His last feature performance is in The Pale Blue Eye. Haven't seen it. Which is Scott Cooper's adaptation of... I don't know if it's an adaptation it's a portrait of Edgar Allan Poe's life I think it was based on a novel that is sort of a detective movie featuring Edgar Allan Poe Christian Bale plays the part Duvall plays Jean Pepe it's fine it's nice to see him on screen at this stage of his life he's giving a very quiet croaky performance it's not going in the hall of fame let's do some revisiting where we're at I can't wait are people still listening?

2:39:51Sean Fennessey:I'm listening to you we have one two three four five two four six eight greens those greens are to kill a mockingbird the godfather one and two network apocalypse now the great santini tender mercies lonesome dove and the apostle solid here are the yellows the rain people thx 1138 tomorrow the outfit open range and get low. I feel this could be very easily done by simply putting the outfit and tomorrow into the Hall of Fame.

2:40:28Sean Fennessey:Read it to me if that's the case. To Kill a Mockingbird, The Godfather, Tomorrow, The Outfit, Network, Apocalypse Now, The Great Santini, Tender Mercies, Lonesome Dove, and The Apostle. Now, if you want to lean into get low or open range to get something from the 2000s in there, we can do that. I'm very comfortable with that Hall of Fame and I'm going to take open range as my blue. Wow. Well, let me just take a quick look at what I want to do blue-wise. There might be something here that I enjoy.

2:41:06Sean Fennessey:This is when I don't, when I'm not speaking, you have to vamp. This is something you have to learn as the third chair. Let me tell you, the traffic out there is really bad. You could do better than that. There was an accident on the 101. For fuck's sake. I can't believe you'd do this to me No, I can vamp, absolutely You kidding? Oh, Robert Duvall He was awfully good I loved him I did love him, I wonder if I would have liked him personally He did have a Did have a Cantankerous side, I'm told I'll take THX 1138 If you had taken open range, I would have taken THX I think that's great What a healthy set of decisions So guys, we'll green tomorrow in the outfit and we've completed after two and a half hours.

2:41:50Let's hear it.

2:41:51Sean Fennessey:The Greens. What's the Robert Duvall Hall of Fame? From 1962 to Kill a Mockingbird. From 72 and 74, The Godfather 1 and 2 and 3. From 1973, Tomorrow. From 1973, The Outfit. From 1976, Network. From 1979, Apocalypse Now. From 1979, The Great Santini. From 1983, Tender Mercies. from 1989, Lonesome Dove, even though it's TV. From 1997, The Apostle. The blue, for me, is THX 1138. And for you... Open range. We've done it. We've done it, by God. By God, we've done it. That was a big one. That was a really large. That was a lot of work. I'm not going to be the guy that gets called whenever the old guy dies.

2:42:42Because there's a thing that does happen. 70s movies are better than the 80s movies, and the 80s movies are better than the 90s movies, and the 90s movies are better than the 21st century. 22nd, 24th.

2:42:55Sean Fennessey:What century is it? Let's go back to the 80s movies are better than the 90s movies. Pretty much across the board. Okay, well, on that we shall part. Tracy Letts, thank you. John Finnessy. Incredible amount of work you put into this. That's, you know, this is my job, man. This is my job. I take my responsibilities as professional podcaster and third chair of the Big Pick podcast very seriously. Uh-huh. You think you'll write another play? Why would I do that? I'd like to read it. That's hard. You know, writing is hard. It is hard. Writing is really hard. Really hard, yeah. Well, I'd like to say thanks to Jack Sanders for his work as producer on this show.

2:43:40Sean Fennessey:Thanks to Lucas Cavanaugh and Sarah Reddy for being in here today, helping us get this episode off the ground. You know, I think what's going to happen is later this week, Chris Ryan and I are going to talk about Mortal Kombat 2, Obsession, Hocum, and the Future of Horror. Do you know what any of those things are? I know that Mortal Kombat 2 is a sequel to a movie based on a video game. Oh, sounds like you've been boning up. You want to join us? And you're going to talk about what was the second part of that? Obsession? not the Brian De Palma film starring Cliff Robertson. Hocum. Hocum is Adam Scott.

2:44:17That's right. I've seen it. Obsession is oh Obsession is about the guy who makes the horror movie about the guy who makes the deal with the devil that the girl's going to fall in love with him. See he's been practicing. He's been thinking hard.

2:44:31Sean Fennessey:All you got to do is move to LA and quit all your other stuff and probably leave your family. What do you think? We'll talk. We'll talk. See you soon.

2:45:10Sean Fennessey:focused for drinking storm storm good energy in good energy out energy for life