Hey there True Believers! From the minds of Dion Baia and long-time SNMS listener Moose Matson comes this tribute to the old-fashioned radio-plays we love, this suspenseful thriller produced by James Hancock of Wrongreel, a podplay meant to shine a light on the long-lost art of, The Theater of the Mind! Come listen to this terrifying tale of a man in 1879 obsessed with hunting down the legendary Bigfoot creature, and the madness that it brings.
As the summer comes to a close, the boys want to welcome you back the Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers‘ 2019 Summer of Sequels! Dion Baia and J. Blake are wrapping up the season with a bang, as they pull out all the stops and cover the underrated (and their favorite in the series) spaghetti western masterpiece, Sergio Leone’sFor a Few Dollars More from 1965, starring Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef.
The fellas bring separate suitcases as they unpack and discuss the impact that this film, For a Few Dollars More, and the Italian western sub genre, had on the greater western genre on a whole. Blake explains the evolution of the Italian Spaghetti western and Sergio Leone‘s influence, while Dion lays out the incredible era of the American television westerns of the 1950’s, and Clint Eastwood’s journey to television and then to the groundbreaking, career-defining and trend-setting Fistful of Dollars, in 1964. It comes together for the lads as they argue why (in their humble opinion ) For a Few Dollars More is the best of the Eastwood/Leonewestern trilogy. And they hit on the influence of Morricone’s amazing score and its impact. So kick the dust out of your boots, put your feet up and settle in around the campfire, as Dion and Blake hit the trail one more time in the roundup of the 2019 Summer of Sequels in an all new edition of Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers!
(*The David JanssenTV mountain film mention within the episode is called High Ice, and not Avalanche. Sorry for that. )
Extras! As mentioned in the podcast, here are some shots from the original theatrical program for the play Mister Roberts, with Dion‘s mother‘s family goat, Bertha, making her Broadway debut. Check them out HERE, HERE, HERE, HEREHERE, and HERE.
This time around Dion and Blake are talking about potentially their most controversial film for Saturday Night Movie Sleepovers to date, Don Siegel‘s classic, the original Dirty Harry, from 1971, starring Clint Eastwood.
This groundbreaking film literally paved the way for the onslaught of police genre stories on the big and small screen in the 1970’s, and refined and set the standard for the Vigilante/Anti-Hero genre that blossomed for the next 20 years, and also spawned 4 sequels. So why the heck was this film so contentious for 1971? How did the raw violence and its graphic depiction sit with audiences at the time? How does it hold up today? Is this actually a Western in disguise? Is the film’s composer Lalo Schrifrin as underrated as it seems? Did this film quite possibly give us the action film genre as we knew it with Arnold, Sly, and Willis in the 1980’s- Wha-? Hmm… Well come on down and give us a spin on another brand-new edition of Saturday Night MovieSleepovers!
*Dion erroneously referred to Frank Sinatra‘s 1967 film Tony Rome, when he actually met his 1968 film The Detective.
