Boom Town (1940) Conversation with Rick Barlow

Boom Town (1940) a pre-World War II adventure about two oil wildcatters, Clark Gable and Spencer Tracy, both in love with the same woman, Claudette Colbert.

Automated Transcript Boom Town (1940)

Rick Barlow Boom Town (1940)

[00:00:00] John Cornelison: [00:00:00] Well, you ready to get going?

Rick Barlow: [00:00:02] Yeah, I am.

John Cornelison: [00:00:04] I’ll let you lead off on this one.

Rick Barlow: [00:00:08] Well, I love that movie Boom Town. I’ve always loved it. I’ve probably seen it four or five times. I watched it again with my son, just, the night before last. And, I just, you know, Clark Gable is maybe one of my two or three top favorite actors. And this is a movie where he’s just fantastic.

I think, I mean, nobody can deliver the dialogue. I love all that old 1930s dialogue, you know, make it snappy. My dad used to say all that stuff. And I thought it was a wonderful story. I love story. A, a sad love story, really, because one character is unrequited love for, for the, for the main female or the female lead.

And, and yet they’re buddies and, I there’s so much to this movie. I just, I don’t know. I don’t know where you wanna

start. I don’t know, I was just agreeing with Gable was just, you know, he can pop those lines off and that kind of grim he’s God, go ahead. I was just watching a bit of a misfits the other day.

Oh yeah. His

John Cornelison: [00:01:18] last film and it’s just so good.

Rick Barlow: [00:01:20] Oh, there are some scenes he delivers, there are some scenes in that movie that I’m. Break your heart.

John Cornelison: [00:01:28] I don’t want to go off on a bad tangent, but I had to buy, gone with the wind before it disappears from last night, I bought that cause it, before it disappears from our society forever.

Rick Barlow: [00:01:41] Yeah, isn’t that amazing? I mean, you can still see, in fact iTunes is just put it up with, with its featured, selections. So, Netflix removes it and iTunes features it. So

John Cornelison: [00:01:52] they’re selling it. Right.

Rick Barlow: [00:01:54] Thank God for

John Cornelison: [00:01:55] that. Anyway. [00:02:00] Oh gosh. Now I’m drawing a blank. Spencer, Tracy. I couldn’t decide if I liked him as a real tough guy.

You know, that was real, you know, he was a tough scrapper. I can find it. I see him as Father Flanagan, maybe, but not so much punching it out in a bar and intimidating people. Cause I always thought he was a little shorter and stuff.

Rick Barlow: [00:02:24] Yeah. I, I hadn’t thought about that. I guess I can see that. I just, you know, I bought the character.

Yeah. And, I mean these old movies, they just can’t help, but be corny when, when they’re hitting those three guys and the guys are sliding along the floor and they got a contest of who could hit them, the

John Cornelison: [00:02:46] furthest along

Rick Barlow: [00:02:47] the floor. I mean,

John Cornelison: [00:02:50] Yeah,

Rick Barlow: [00:02:51] you don’t see that in movies today. It’s just, people were corny and yet they pulled it

John Cornelison: [00:02:56] off so different time.

Cause I, you know, I do a lot of, you know, the film nor stuff, and it was kind of interesting thinking about this movie in terms of where it was coming out of the great depression. You know, cause they were just, you know, maybe just starting to gear up again, 40 getting ready for the war and everything.

Rick Barlow: [00:03:18] But this movie, this movie was shot in 39. So it was really before the gear up started, it was in 39. If I remember correctly, might’ve been the worst year of the

John Cornelison: [00:03:29] depression because it had slumped back in. Right again. Yeah. And that’s, I was thinking about that in terms of like, Well, you know, there’s still opportunities out there, but you know, you might end up on the bottom again and it can be back on top and kind of putting it in the context of time and coming off of, you know, Andy Hardy and all that stuff into this, like, well, you can make it if you work hard enough and you get lucky.

Yeah. I’m probably going to blow it anyway. So, I thought that was real interesting.

Rick Barlow: [00:04:01] Yeah. It’s I love the sense of. The indomitable American spirit. It’s, it’s another version of the pioneers in a way, these wildcatters, they go out on their own and gamble, everything, and sometimes they get it. Sometimes they don’t just, like you say, they hit it and then they blow it.

John Cornelison: [00:04:24] Yeah. She’s pumping mud, right?

Rick Barlow: [00:04:27] Yeah. Yeah.

It’s just a great feeling, you know, and I think it’s the kind of. a sense that the movie wanted to take to the audience that even when you’re down, you’re, you’re just maybe a few steps away from being back up again. So, it’s a hopeful movie.

John Cornelison: [00:04:48] It really is, you know, it comes back together and I’m really, Oh, I assume you’re a big fan too.

Rick Barlow: [00:04:56] I like her a lot. Yeah.

John Cornelison: [00:04:59] You pick two movies with her and gay. Well, the only two they made together, they made together,

Rick Barlow: [00:05:05] but they didn’t give her much to do. And I think that’s interesting because, again, you’re prewar, pre-World War II. So, if you look at the two women, the two female characters, you see.

Women who are not yet out on their own, you know, they’re not, both women depend heavily on men. One is a stay at home wife who devotes her whole life, drags herself around the world. Couldn’t be happier to live in some little Duncan, South America, just because she’s with her man. And then you’ve got the Hedy Lamar character who’s also in love with, with Clark Gable, but she’s on her own. And yet she too is dependent on men. She’s got the hangout, we’ll listen to the gossip and, and sell her. You know, sell what she hears in order to get her a relationship, maintain a relationship, send her, [00:06:00] her financial wherewithal. So, it’s interesting because just two more years, and these women are probably going to be working in munitions factories.

Like my mother, my mom and dad met in in an ammunition factory and from Minnesota. So. You know, all of a sudden, you’ve got women liberating themselves through world war II.

John Cornelison: [00:06:26] Did you think they were doing a little homage to ’em? Oh, it happened one night when they were, when she was washing the clothes, I think they were still in Oklahoma. She was washing the clothes and he was washing the clothes and they were happy back and forth in their little shack. It’s kind of was like when they were living on the road and that other movie, except

Rick Barlow: [00:06:47] when they were living on the road.

In the other movie, there was constant conflict between the two. And in this case, they were in harmony. They were both happy. They were both pursuing a dream. Right. Both those movies are great though. I’ve watched them again, anytime.

John Cornelison: [00:07:05] This is really the first time that a lot of times I’ll say I’ve never seen a movie, you know, then I started watching it and they’ll go, Oh yeah, I know this movie.

And this was really the first time I’ve ever seen this movie, you know? And that’s, that’s pretty rare because I’ve watched a lot of movies. And so, it was all, all fresh to me this time.

Rick Barlow: [00:07:25] It’s, you know, it’s interesting how they. I mean, it’s, it’s just not credible, but it’s interesting how they managed to do it.

Clark Gable meets quite a Cole bear one evening and by the next morning they’re married, they go to a rodeo and

John Cornelison: [00:07:47] yeah. Well, you know, I mean, I kind of stuff was happening, you know, a couple of years later when the war got going. Yeah. People were, you know, accelerating the time. Oh

Rick Barlow: [00:07:58] yeah.

John Cornelison: [00:07:59] But yeah, [00:08:00] that was a married, his buddy’s girl, you know, or what his buddy thought was his girl.

Rick Barlow: [00:08:05] Yeah. Yeah.

John Cornelison: [00:08:07] So I know there were a lot. Oh yeah. The other, the other actors and, Hedy Lamarr. That’s Hedley. Okay. Good thinking of blazing saddles. Every time I saw her, but, she was, an interesting, you know, I guess w did the accent and the high society and she was kind of different. Oh, so this whole movie that brought them into the, it brought them into the cosmopolitan side from the, was it work, work bank or something?

Oklahoma.

Rick Barlow: [00:08:42] Yeah,

John Cornelison: [00:08:45] I like Frank Morgan in there. You know, the old wizard of Oz was

Rick Barlow: [00:08:49] good. He’s always great. It’s always the same.

John Cornelison: [00:08:53] Oh, I watched him in, Shop Around the Corner with Jimmy Stewart and everything. And it’s a little Christmas movie where they’re like Bucharest and Christmas time. And. Jimmy, Stewart’s in love with this one.

He’s in love with this correspondence, pen pal. And it’s the same girl that he works in the store with. And neither one of them know it.

Rick Barlow: [00:09:16] Oh yeah. I vaguely remember that.

John Cornelison: [00:09:19] Yeah, it was a good movie. Actually, they made You’ve Got Mail as a remake of it. Oh. And that’s why her store n that movie is called “Shop Around the Corner.

Okay. The shop around the corner from that other movie,

Rick Barlow: [00:09:37] I got to check that out again. It’s been awhile. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it.

John Cornelison: [00:09:41] Yeah, he was good. And then a plot, I’m looking at the list here, Lionel that, well, you know, he’s always a good guy from the Frankenstein movies.

Rick Barlow: [00:09:52] The oil guy from New York right

John Cornelison: [00:09:54] here, he’d come to Nevis.

The one that he will lost his career because he got busted in some crazy sex party, Richmond. You know, which, which basically just considered consistent of like drunken nudity, nudity at this time, you know, when it ruined his career. And, I probably wouldn’t get a disturbing, the peace nowadays

Rick Barlow: [00:10:17] probably make his career nowadays.

John Cornelison: [00:10:18] Yeah. But he was always good. He’s really good in. I think he’s the main inspector and Son of Frankenstein (1939), you know, the one that has the, he has a wooden arm that they spoof in young

Rick Barlow: [00:10:33] Frankenstein. Oh yeah. Putting the darts

John Cornelison: [00:10:36] in his

Rick Barlow: [00:10:36] arm.

John Cornelison: [00:10:39] He’s so good in that one. And up with chili Will’s popped up,

Rick Barlow: [00:10:43] man. He’s everywhere.

Isn’t he?

John Cornelison: [00:10:46] He’s great though. And I thought when I first heard the voice, I thought it was a, the other one. What’s that guy’s name? Oh, slim. I thought it was slim pickings. When I first heard the boy, cause he looks so young and then I realized it was Chill Wills.

Rick Barlow: [00:11:03] You know, one of my favorite Laurel and Hardy movies way out West.

As a sequence where they walk up to this saloon and they’re four or five guys playing music and singing on the porch and then Laurel and Hardy do this wonderful little dance and chill. Wills is, is the main singer in this group. He looks like he’s about 19 years old, but he’s got a really good voice. He sings pretty well, but he’s everywhere in these movies, the endless sidekick.

John Cornelison: [00:11:34] Yeah, I think his dad said he was born on the hottest day in Texas ever. So, I got his first name.

Rick Barlow: [00:11:43] Well, what was that?

John Cornelison: [00:11:44] He was born. He was born on the hottest day in Texas ever chiller Chile, July 18th. And. See go Seagoville Texas. [00:12:00] Yeah, Texas. There were a few other people stuck in there, you know? I mean, Marion Morton. She was the Madam. Oh. At, gosh, from, three Musketeers. When the man in the iron mask, she was Madam de Valarie

Rick Barlow: [00:12:24] oh, is that the blonde white

John Cornelison: [00:12:28] looking saloon girl on her? I was reading about her and they said her family was really rich and went completely bust in the 1929 stock crash. And that’s how she ended up in, in movies. Cause you had to work after that, but you’ve been to like the top schools and everything.

She ends up playing, you know, just the floozy everywhere. They kinda typed her into it. Oh

Rick Barlow: [00:12:54] yeah. She and she was good in that too. but that’s that too is a style, you know, you don’t. In another 10 years or maybe even less, you wouldn’t see that particular, feminine look featured in the same kind of role at would’ve taken on a, a little harder edge or I think a little sharper edge.

John Cornelison: [00:13:15] Lean more to the Femme Fatale, Remnants of the May West. Yes. Yeah, I know there was a lot of people stuck in here. You know, his secretary when he was in New York,

Rick Barlow: [00:13:29] Sarah

She looks familiar. I don’t know where it’s here before

John Cornelison: [00:13:34] she was in shop around the corner. The Bishop’s wife, you, those kind of things is playing that same little I’m your secretary.

And Oh, just the whole short bit. Mike McGlynn senior. Which is he was in Captain Blood. He was one of the, well, one of the reverends and captain blood. He was the, him and the lady were trying to pick up Claudette Colbert. And when she first came to town

Rick Barlow: [00:13:58] yeah. The Reverend or whatever they call

John Cornelison: [00:14:00] the deacon end.

So, there were just all kinds of people stuck in this movie. There was a big cast. Yeah. And that’s, that’s just a quick, you know, Frank. Phalen’s always one of my favorites. He was just a guy at the dice table. Right. Just popped up for a second. And he was a, I know him because he’s the guy that gave up Fred Berry, a job at the end of the best years of our lives.

Rick Barlow: [00:14:26] Right, right. Another great movie. I love that movie.

John Cornelison: [00:14:30] Oh yeah. That is, that is a great movie. I mean, just that’s top five. I think.

Rick Barlow: [00:14:37] You’ve reviewed that already, correct?

John Cornelison: [00:14:39] Yeah. Yeah. It’s been a way back, but yeah,

Rick Barlow: [00:14:41] I’ve probably listened to it. So

John Cornelison: [00:14:43] yeah, some of them just, you know, some of those movies are so great like that, you know, the best years of our lives, you can’t really riff on it, you know?

You know what I mean? You’re not gonna, I’m not trying to knock anything off of it. And then all you’re saying then is like, I love this movie. This movie is great. I love this when they did this, I love that. So, the better the movie, the harder it is to do anything. So

Rick Barlow: [00:15:09] again, this movie is one of those examples of how tight the writing can be, how much ground they cover.

And how well they do the transitions that move you along. It’s, you know, it would be good to just sit there and watch it and analyze it for the movement, the, you know, the passage of time and the way they handle it. Like you said, they meet, they meet with late one afternoon or early one evening when she gets off a bus.

And by the next morning they’ve been to a rodeo and they’ve, they’ve. Had dinner and they’ve had a night and they’ve gotten married and oops, here comes for boy, you know, John’s and the partner, I mean, so much happens, but it’s tight. They, you know, they don’t waste any dialogue when she comes down off that staircase.

And he [00:16:00] says, I make my mind up fast, something like that. The next morning they’re married.

John Cornelison: [00:16:05] Well, you know, that was quick, you know, I mean, not just thought that the at first, you know, like, Oh, they spent the night together, you know, and, well they’d already taken care of it. They’d already taken care of the production code.

Rick Barlow: [00:16:16] Exactly.

John Cornelison: [00:16:20] Like I was going to say something about the. About the, Oh yeah. I’ll read some reviews of this. And a lot of people were panning it when they went back East. See, they didn’t like the tone of the movie and it drug on too long. Well, I thought it was a good condo. I think he pulled the whole story together and then putting them back basically where they started in.

Rick Barlow: [00:16:45] Yeah, I think, you know, what, what, what they’re exploring there is big John’s ambition and his ability because he goes up against the powers in the East and during the depression, you know, the banks are the enemy and everything in the East is a, it symbolizes that Eastern establishment, the, the sort of accents of those characters.

And it’s big John, the common man up against the establishment, any. And he takes him down and he bankrupt some, and then they wind up sick and the government on

John Cornelison: [00:17:18] him,

Rick Barlow: [00:17:21] Spencer Tracy says, if a man like a McMasters, can’t go out. I dunno what he says, make a million dollars with his hands in his mind. Then we better think twice about this America, the land of opportunity stuff

John Cornelison: [00:17:39] that kind of a, that kind of struck me too.

Tracy did that kind of a well conservation speech there at the end of the, you know, he’s trying to make this all sustainable. So, it’ll last, you know, right. No, I don’t think anybody was thinking about running out of oil back then too much.

Rick Barlow: [00:17:57] yeah, I mean, of [00:18:00] course that scene leads to another great Clark Gable line, deliberate impeccably.

He says it’s got a lot, the ham in him doesn’t mean

John Cornelison: [00:18:11] he didn’t really defend him for what he did. He just. Kind of made a speech

Rick Barlow: [00:18:17] he doesn’t realize what he’s doing, but he’s saving oil and that’s the lifeblood of our country.

John Cornelison: [00:18:23] And I’m sure you’re familiar with that. who was a Kettle Mountain field?

Rick Barlow: [00:18:27] Kettle Mountain. Yeah.

John Cornelison: [00:18:28] Kettleman Kettleman mountain was the biggest, like all strike.

I had to look that up cause y’all I have no idea what that was. Yeah. I figured it was something like that when I saw it. Yeah. So, the, All around. I think it was a pretty good movie. You know, I moved, I feel pretty good about watching it and, a lot of good characters and the ups and downs, she knows kind of like Spencer, Tracy, you felt sorry for him.

When, after she tried to kill herself and was telling them he didn’t know what it was like to be in love with somebody that didn’t love him back,

Rick Barlow: [00:19:01] you know,

John Cornelison: [00:19:02] kind of got the feeling,

Rick Barlow: [00:19:04] you know,

John Cornelison: [00:19:06] Spencer Tracy. Yeah. Think these guys had a lot of pride too, that kept them from making a lot of money. Their pride was holding them back.

Rick Barlow: [00:19:18] They, you know, they stood on their principles and, I mean, flip a coin and take off

John Cornelison: [00:19:28] just with two out of three here.

Rick Barlow: [00:19:30] I mean, we talk about setting the stakes over and over in that movie, they set the stakes, you know, it’s winner take all, it’s boomer boss and, and they’re, you know, they’re Americans, so they they’ve got the heart.

They’ve got the courage; they’ve got the ability. What’s a little failure. You know, the success is just over the next Hill.

John Cornelison: [00:19:55] When the sheriff came out there after him. You know, they would have been dead or in prison [00:20:00] if they hadn’t had got away in that car, not only did they have the ability and te opportunity, they had some luck to that through a man, you know? So, all these things, I know that, you know, Lux nothing but the residue of good planning, but it helps.

Rick Barlow: [00:20:16] Right. Yeah. Well, it’s, it’s, I think it’s one of the all-time, best buddy movies, with the romance right in the middle of it, everybody loves everybody and, and somehow it all works

John Cornelison: [00:20:28] out. Need the romance, do the buddies that keep coming in and out. I mean, he could have been, it almost could have been made without that.

Rick Barlow: [00:20:40] I don’t know. I don’t think it would have been. I don’t think it would have been as interesting because the, the kind of sacrifice that was required of the, of John sand squared for John Spencer, Tracy, was, it was it, the stakes for him were always higher because of his love for forget her name now.

John Cornelison: [00:21:10] And without that,

Rick Barlow: [00:21:11] without that it would have been, I think, a less interesting movie.

John Cornelison: [00:21:15] Yeah. Shorter though. I looked up some, you know, that just like a pivotal scene to me, just when they thought that far Orwell.

Rick Barlow: [00:21:27] Yeah,

John Cornelison: [00:21:29] right before they had the big fight and everything, but, He, that was just beautifully shot and done.

You know, whether, you know, wrapping up with rags and watering himself down, the same thing, of course, you know, you saw in the other version of it in hell fighters, 1968 with John Wayne. And I looked up, I had to look it up because I’ve watched it one time. There’s a movie called blackmail 1939. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but it has Edward G. Robinson and it says. Cool.

John [00:22:00] Ingram, a successful oil field fighter is really a chain gang escaping. And it’s a pretty good movie about.. He escaped from the chain gang. It gets out and it’s called Blackmail (1939). And it gets out in California. I think it’s California. And he starts fighting fires.

Rick Barlow: [00:22:20] Yeah, we’ll look it up. You got to watch it.

John Cornelison: [00:22:22] Yeah. So, it looks like there’s a, you know, there’s a few of them. I mean, there’s a good history of these wildcatter movies, you know? I don’t remember what it’s called, but it’s, you know, remember James Stewart’s down there and they’re working in the, the oil fields off of Louisiana.

I think it maybe it’s an FBI movie. Down there and the Giant (1956) of course, you know? Yep. And then there’s a, you know, of course in The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), she knows they’re out there doing Wildcat work down in

Rick Barlow: [00:22:53] Mexico. Oh, I love that book.

John Cornelison: [00:22:59] So, you know, like, I guess any anybody, Uncle Jed or anybody can strike black gold and then you’ve got it made, you know, so that’s

Rick Barlow: [00:23:06] kind of our,

John Cornelison: [00:23:07] Frederick Jackson Turner familiar with that historian.

Rick Barlow: [00:23:10] Yeah, the, the American frontier guy

John Cornelison: [00:23:12] frontier. Yeah. So, it’s like our frontier, you know, you can always go out there. You can just have all beneath your feet, maybe. Yeah. If it doesn’t work, you can keep going. Did you find it? And then down to South

Rick Barlow: [00:23:24] America? So, I think it was a very

John Cornelison: [00:23:27] aspirational movie about the American

Rick Barlow: [00:23:29] spirit.

Yeah, I think so too. And, it’s, When I, when I feel when I watch these movies and, and enjoy them so much, I forget that I’ve. I’ve left all of this behind. I mean, you, you get caught up in modern movies today and there’s so much more, backstory and character development. And, you know, it’s just, it’s just not as much fun in most cases, except [00:24:00] for certain directors, you know, the Cohen brothers may be, and Tarantino may be, but, but to go back and watch these kinds of actors, I mean, what Clark cable made.

What’s a 31 movies in 30 years, something like that. I mean, this guy just kept making movies. Every movie, he was fantastic. And the movies are, like I said, they’re so tight and they’re not afraid to cover a lot of ground a lot of time. Right. The writing. And you know, there’s something about them, the best days of our lives that wouldn’t, you mentioned.

No, that’s another heartbreaking movie. There, there moments in there that just crush you, you, but, but this one I feel like is all upbeat.

John Cornelison: [00:24:47] This

Rick Barlow: [00:24:48] can happen one night. It’s all upbeat. It’s a hopeful. It celebrates the common man and the American spirit and, and hope it’s just a, it’s a perfect depression movie.

John Cornelison: [00:25:04] I mean, we touched on this before, you know? Yeah. In a couple of years, a year or two after this, this kind of movie is gone. It really, this one was important because of where it falls in American history. Right. I like these ones that are bridges between two arrows and pretty soon everything’s different.

Yeah.

Rick Barlow: [00:25:27] Well, and of course, during the depression, you had other kinds of movies. I mean, you could contrast this against the grapes of wrath where while, while it’s hopeful, essentially, it’s, there’s nothing in the movie that shows. conquests of your circumstances, it’s a sort of a dedicated, it’s a, a dedication of the spirit without, the evidence of success,

John Cornelison: [00:25:58] right?

[00:26:00] Rick Barlow: [00:26:01] It’s a sort of a, we shall overcome versus we’re going to strike it. Rich. Both those types of movies disappeared in another two years.

John Cornelison: [00:26:10] Yeah. Well, the, you know, grapes of wrath, which is, I can’t say anything bad about that movie at all. They said, why me? It’s the endings lighter in the movie than it was in the book.

It’s a lot darker in the book, but yeah, that might be, they almost got, you know, so run out of town as communists for making that movie. So, there weren’t very many of that type, you know?

Rick Barlow: [00:26:33] Yeah.

John Cornelison: [00:26:34] They paid it. I mean, they paid a price for making that movie. And then there were a lot of cuts that had to be made.

Rick Barlow: [00:26:40] Well, you know, that was, that was a struggle back then. I mean, if, if the country was ever going to go communist, it was then.

John Cornelison: [00:26:48] Yeah. The 50, the 50-state experiment, I guess, 48 state experiment, then you know where everybody, and then you had a, but one of the guy in Louisiana.

Rick Barlow: [00:26:59] Oh, Huey long

John Cornelison: [00:27:02] kind of experimenting way out there, you know, socialism or communism there, you know, it was killed kinda, he

Rick Barlow: [00:27:09] was a, he was the Bernie Sanders of his day.

Yeah. And more extreme maybe, although not really. Pretty damn extreme.

John Cornelison: [00:27:18] Yup. Yup. And he would back it up with it, you know, he would back it up pretty harsh, but you know, you still cross the Huey long bridge down there. When you go over to the Mississippi, there’s the one direction. So, he bought some stuff

Rick Barlow: [00:27:31] that’s on the movie, the

John Cornelison: [00:27:33] fiction movie based on that is all the president’s men.

I mean all the Kings men. Yeah. And that’s another great movie. All the Kings man.

Rick Barlow: [00:27:42] Trying to remember the actor that played in,

John Cornelison: [00:27:44] Oh, it’s broad Rick Crawford.

Rick Barlow: [00:27:46] It was rudder Crawford. Oh. And I was thinking of a different guy. Yes. Product Crawford.

John Cornelison: [00:27:53] And there was a John Derrick was his son.

Rick Barlow: [00:27:56] Oh yeah. You

John Cornelison: [00:27:57] know, cherry, the [00:28:00] Lance, whatever that guy’s name is.

Rick Barlow: [00:28:04] John Ireland.

John Cornelison: [00:28:05] Yeah. John Ireland was the reporter.

Rick Barlow: [00:28:07] Jerry, the Lance, is that from a. Red river. Yeah,

John Cornelison: [00:28:13] we got a lot of

Rick Barlow: [00:28:15] references gone here to man. Yeah.

John Cornelison: [00:28:20] Yeah. So, Oh, so what else are we talking about on this movie? talk about it in significance in this character they’re related movies, it was nominated for best cinematography, black and white.

Rick Barlow: [00:28:36] Oh, I was going to say something about that, that, scene where they were fighting the wildfire.

John Cornelison: [00:28:41] Yeah.

Rick Barlow: [00:28:42] I, you know, they didn’t have computer generated graphics back then, so. I don’t know how they pulled that off, but man, that looks so real

John Cornelison: [00:28:53] when the fire blew back on him and they had the role

Rick Barlow: [00:28:58] pretty realistic.

I, I thought of that. Hell, did they pull this off?

John Cornelison: [00:29:03] I’m sure. That’s why they got nominated, you know, for that, for the best cinematography, for that part right in there. Cause everything else was good. You know, there was nothing wrong with everything else, but that was like, Well, I got excited during this movie is watching that scene.

Rick Barlow: [00:29:18] Yeah,

John Cornelison: [00:29:19] yeah,

Rick Barlow: [00:29:20] yeah. And back then we could still think about oil is the lifeblood of the, it sure was. It always has been

John Cornelison: [00:29:30] ever since the whale wall ran out.

Rick Barlow: [00:29:31] Right. Exactly.

John Cornelison: [00:29:37] So what else are we going on here? Do you know much about HedyLamar?

Rick Barlow: [00:29:44] I remember that she invented, I was trying to think whether it was radar or sonar, she embedded some kind of technology that was crucial to the defense effort

John Cornelison: [00:29:56] to donate it into the country. Right?

Rick Barlow: [00:29:58] Yeah, I believe so.

[00:30:00] John Cornelison: [00:30:00] There’s some that I know, cause it’s still in Bluetooth.

It’s still part of the Bluetooth, but I don’t know exactly what it does it had to do with transfer way to transmit, transmit. Fast,

Rick Barlow: [00:30:13] there’s a biography of her that, I keep thinking, I might read because of that, you know, an actress, the is somehow a technology creator is interesting to me. And, I might pick up that book.

I think I might’ve mentioned to you before that there’s a really good biography of Clark Gable. It’s probably. It’s probably 15 years old now, but I remember reading it and reading about his humble beginnings in Ohio and how he sort of married his way up the, up the movie chain. until the big star

John Cornelison: [00:30:52] Carole Lombard.

Rick Barlow: [00:30:54] No, no, no. That was his. Maybe his third wife, his first wife was an older woman who was connected to the theater somehow. And she sort of groaned him and connected him with opportunities. And as soon as he started to get some momentum, he divorced her and Erin did another woman who was wealthy. I think he was married to her only for a couple of years, but once again, advanced his career barred.

He married in 38 or 37 37

John Cornelison: [00:31:31] 39 39.

Rick Barlow: [00:31:32] Okay. That was the lovely group slice. Supposedly they ran off and got married in Kingman, Arizona of all places drive through kingdom and there. Their claim to fame is Andy Devine. There’s an Andy Davon Boulevard.

John Cornelison: [00:31:50] Oh yeah. I was talking to somebody on Twitter about that and they went to Andy divine park or something there.

Rick Barlow: [00:31:56] Yeah.

John Cornelison: [00:31:59] Oh, [00:32:00] like Andy Devine. I was reading a, it was what was the one that stagecoach. Well, Ford was yelling at him and told him that, you know, he was going to replace him with somebody else. And he’s like, you can’t replace me because that guy can’t drive a 16 coach, you know? So, the actor had to really be able to handle the equipment.

Yeah. So Carole Lombard is the one that died in the plane crash, right?

Rick Barlow: [00:32:26] Caught a plane out of Vegas, headed back to LA and I flew right into a mountain.

She was on a war, war, bonds tour. And

John Cornelison: [00:32:39] that’s when he joined the military after that. Right.

Rick Barlow: [00:32:42] That’s the other interesting thing about these actors, world war two, a whole lot of them signed up and were in combat. I mean, Gable flew bombing missions. I think he was a gunner on a bomber. Yeah. And James Stewart was a pilot and flew.

I think I already flew something like 40 some missions.

John Cornelison: [00:33:01] Yeah. They really got me in a few of them, really got into it, you know, and they really did their bit, I mean, to be card Gable and fly missions over Germany, I think they had a $5 million reward out or the equivalent of $5 million reward. If you could bring that plane down.

Rick Barlow: [00:33:17] Wow

John Cornelison: [00:33:18] for the Germans.

Rick Barlow: [00:33:20] A lot of those planes went down to that. That was hazardous duty.

John Cornelison: [00:33:25] It was not yet trying to get 25 missions, you know, would that take into 43 or something until they could get a plane that had 25 missions? Wow. The Memphis Belle made it. And, yeah, the only one that didn’t was, you know, old John Wayne,

Rick Barlow: [00:33:42] John Wayne, the, the ultimate Patriots managed to.

John Cornelison: [00:33:46] Skip

Rick Barlow: [00:33:46] that one.

John Cornelison: [00:33:49] It’s pretty amazing. I did one, on In Harm’s Way (1965). And I was just going and I was going in like given, Oh, Tom Tyrone, four years in the Navy during world war II in the [00:34:00] Pacific. And it was just going down the list and just, you know, 90 percent of the males we’re in and did it for real, you know, like, I mean, not special services at all.

Rick Barlow: [00:34:11] No. No, they were, they were doing the real deal. Trying to remember what if Kirk does it? It seems to me, Kirk Douglas was in, but I don’t remember which branch of the service you mentioned in harm’s way. And another movie that I like, although one of my least favorite actors or actresses is Patricia Neil.

I think she’s one of the ultimate hand bones, but

John Cornelison: [00:34:38] she does pretty good in that one.

Rick Barlow: [00:34:41] Not too bad. Yeah. That’s a good one. Burgess Meredith, have you

John Cornelison: [00:34:46] ever read that? Yeah, way back. Well, that’s what I was just doing. I was doing like a military spoof on it, like he was in, but John Wayne wasn’t there, but John Wayne wasn’t, you know? Yeah. Like a that’s the other guy.

Rick Barlow: [00:35:02] Oh,

John Cornelison: [00:35:03] not Posey. I’m just thinking of a little town in Collins, Mississippi North of where I grew up and, He played Fred Derry and Best Years of Our Lives.

Rick Barlow: [00:35:13] Oh, Oh. You’re thinking of Dana Andrews.

John Cornelison: [00:35:17] Dana Andrew‘s was from a little town called Collins, Mississippi, his brothers, Steve Forrest, right? Yeah.

Steve Forrest was in, but Dana was never ran, you know, just like a couple of years differences, all it, all it made, you know? Yeah. Whether they ran or not. That’s pretty amazing.

Rick Barlow: [00:35:38] Yeah, that was experience that we we’ve missed. And, not that I, not that I’m unhappy that we missed it, but, but when everybody wanting to put on a uniform, I mean, it was a, it was a crusade.

And I remember thinking last Saturday, was it the first D Day in my. In my life that I can remember where D-Day wasn’t featured in the front page of the newspapers.

John Cornelison: [00:36:04] And it won’t be, I guess it won’t be there til it hits another round number again. Well, a hundred, you know,

Rick Barlow: [00:36:14] but I mean it’s every year, no matter what, on D-Day they would have a picture. They would. Yeah. Remember that this year. I don’t know what about you, but I just didn’t see it anywhere was what’s going on.

And I think it’s kind of pitiful, but yeah, no,

John Cornelison: [00:36:32] I think that, you know, cause there’s usually like movie marathons and everything, but I think that, you know, like, you know, Americans love the big, well numbers. Like a hundred thousand dead of Corona Bowers. We won’t care again until it hits 200,000, 125 doesn’t mean anything so big 75, and then it’s just cooling off and then you won’t hear, it’ll just fade until we get close to a hundred.

I won’t see it, but close to a hundred and then it’ll be a big deal once again.

Rick Barlow: [00:37:04] Be optimistic on new technology.

You’ll be a robot. You’ll be, you’ll be your brain will be transferred into a mechanistic. Organism.

John Cornelison: [00:37:18] Yeah. I love reading those science fiction books being uploaded into the thing. They did it. They made a, you know, cause being trapped at home desperate to watch stuff. So I’ve been watching stuff. I would never watch.

There’s one on Netflix. It’s not very good, but the gods girlfriend committed into this afterlife facility. And so he’s been virtually uploaded, but he doesn’t have any money to buy anything unless she gives it to him. You know, she’s still alive. She’s got him controlled. And so like if he runs out of gigabytes or something, he has to go sit in a room until, so next month comes and he gets his two gigabytes back.

[00:38:00] Rick Barlow: [00:38:02] My daughter recommended that to me. Are you recommending it or are you just how

John Cornelison: [00:38:05] many it was? Okay. I mean, it’s all right. You know, it’s made for a younger crowd, a real younger crowd. Yeah. And it’s okay if you’re trapped long enough. It’s probably better than the Tiger King or something.

Rick Barlow: [00:38:18] Well, I have discovered the Vikings and I have been living in the Vikings for the last three weeks.

So

John Cornelison: [00:38:26] we watched that in real time. So,

Rick Barlow: [00:38:28] Oh

John Cornelison: [00:38:28] man, I guess it’s still on, it’s coming back on, but you know, it’s like some of the good characters are gone and we just watched the last kingdom.

Rick Barlow: [00:38:39] Oh, I love that. I’ve read all those books. I read everything Bernard Cornwell was ever written. And I, I love the last kingdom, but I have to say, I think the Vikings is better

John Cornelison: [00:38:48] really well.

It is when Ragnar is left.

Rick Barlow: [00:38:51] Yeah. I miss Ragnar.

John Cornelison: [00:38:54] Yeah. He’s cool guy. You know, and Lagatha. What’s not to like there.

Rick Barlow: [00:39:01] Yeah.

John Cornelison: [00:39:04] Rollo? I guess he was the, the grandfather of William the Conqueror.

Rick Barlow: [00:39:14] Oh, he was,

John Cornelison: [00:39:16] yeah, that, I didn’t know. Yeah.

Rick Barlow: [00:39:21] I guess

John Cornelison: [00:39:21] it’s one of my favorite stories because the Vikings attacked France and they gave him Normandy, which is Norseman man land. Right. And that’s where William the Conqueror came from. And then when we had to invade friends, we went right back to Normandy.

So thing it’s like, it’s like, why do we study history? Looking for these loops and stuff.

Rick Barlow: [00:39:44] Yeah,

John Cornelison: [00:39:45] yeah.

Rick Barlow: [00:39:45] Yeah. The last kingdom is pretty good. I there in the last kingdom, during the season in which Alfred dies last sequence between [00:40:00] Alfred and you trip. I think is one of the most beautifully written sequences I’ve ever seen in a movie or a series that it’s so moving.

So, touching the acting by alpha the Alfred character as beautiful. I’d go back and watch it over and over again. It’s very high-quality stuff.

John Cornelison: [00:40:23] Because Alfrrd, he, he had the order, you know, Chroms Disease probably. And the actor that played him, it looked like he was going to die at any minute, you know, the whole

Rick Barlow: [00:40:33] time.

John Cornelison: [00:40:34] Yeah. Great job. Great job. You know, of course we got the iPad out. So, is that true? Did that battle happen? Was this guy there, you know, just fact check, and everything is

Rick Barlow: [00:40:47] fairly,

John Cornelison: [00:40:48] fairly close, you know? Yeah know,

Rick Barlow: [00:40:52] Cornwell is good with that. He’s his historical fiction. If you’ve ever read the series, a, the Richard Sharpe series on the Napoleonic Wars.

Fantastic stuff.

John Cornelison: [00:41:05] I got, the only thing I’m trying to read right now is through A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting and Filmmaking  Samuel Fuller autobiography. He’s The Big Red One (1980) he wrote, he wrote The Big Red One (1980) and a bunch of film and whole bunch of movies. And it goes to his whole life and, and just, his world war II experiences where he was a, like, he’d been reporting a reporter since he was 13 years old.

And they tried to put him in the press corps. As a Lieutenant and he chose to be a private in the infantry because he was trying to get research for his next book. And he said a thousand times he probably regretted that decision laying in the mud somewhere, you know? Yeah. Cause he was, he was in the African Operation Torch. He was in Sicily, Italy, and D-Day.

Rick Barlow: [00:42:01] Man. He had some bad ones.

John Cornelison: [00:42:11] Yeah, North African invasion is probably the easiest one he had on that list. And just like, it was a true, or they kind of made the Big Red One is largely based on that autobiography. I mean, he wrote it, but the events mostly have really happened. The

Rick Barlow: [00:42:25] The Big Red One (1980). Is that with Lee, Marvin,

John Cornelison: [00:42:28] right?

Rick Barlow: [00:42:29] Yeah. I remember that.

Yeah. Good movie,

John Cornelison: [00:42:32] especially since mostly true. Yeah. They made it kind of on the cheap, I think with the five guys or six guys, you know, it wasn’t ever, it was never like a division of soldiers or CGI troops. No, the other one go ahead. Oh, no, go ahead. I was going to say, I

Rick Barlow: [00:42:54] wonder if the movie Fury (2014) with Brad Pitt was this sort of hearkened back to that The Big Red One (1980) concept?

the tank crew

John Cornelison: [00:43:06] by themselves.

Rick Barlow: [00:43:07] Yeah, but that’d

John Cornelison: [00:43:10] be, that makes me think. Well, Humphrey Bogart, where they have the one tank and as one ally. At one ally firm, basically each branch, they have a British African guy and they have an Italian prisoner and a German prisoner and a couple of British guys. And they are defending this waterhole against the Germans.

Rick Barlow: [00:43:36] Aye. It’s been a while since I’ve seen that. I don’t

John Cornelison: [00:43:39] remember it well, Oh, you need to watch it again. Cause it’s fantastic. Sahara (1943). It’s all like America and, You know, the thing is that they’re out there by themselves and they don’t have radio contact and they don’t, they have no hope of getting, Oh, it’s going to be hitting relief and all they can do is slow this German column down by keeping them from the waterhole for a while. That’s

Rick Barlow: [00:44:04] good. And you’ve given me three movies.

John Cornelison: [00:44:08] Oh, I meant to tell you that, that, there’s a Hedy Lamar. The DV, the documentary is on. Netflix or prime. One of those, you don’t have to read the book if you want to just watch the documentary

Rick Barlow: [00:44:21] that’s right now, I just remembered that I saw that listed.

Yeah. That’s a good idea. I’ll do that. Yeah.

John Cornelison: [00:44:28] There’s a lot. I mean, love, we can go off of this movie at all. No, I think it was a good movie

Rick Barlow: [00:44:35] will work well worth a look. Oh, it’s it’s fun. I don’t think it ever bogs down and, And of course, Clark Gable just, he’s worth every minute of screen time, you can get it’s a, you mentioned the misfits, which was his last movie, but just before he made the misfits, I think he made I’m movie with Dora state called teacher’s pet.

John Cornelison: [00:44:56] Oh, I love that movie. Oh,

Rick Barlow: [00:45:00] that movie is so much fun and he, you know, who knew he could do comedy and yet he does.

John Cornelison: [00:45:07] He’s. He’s in their

Rick Barlow: [00:45:09] brain

John Cornelison: [00:45:11] when they’re paying each one’s paying the waiter to put more alcohol in the other guy’s drink and some of the lines in there. And of course, Doris Day’s creating that movie when she does. So, she’s mocking the stripper or, you know, doing the dance. Yeah. Yeah. It’s pretty awesome in there too. But I was going to ask you if you’d watched another one of his, which is. I like it. It’s not really a great movie.

It’s called Band of Angels (1957). He’s a, it’s a Yvonne De Carlo. She doesn’t know it, but she’s, she’s the daughter of a slave, father and a slave. And so when he dies, although she’s been educated and everything is engaged to a preacher, they sell her as a slave and she ends up down in New Orleans.

Where Clark Gable buys her and Clark Gable has Sydney Poitier that he has raised and educated, and then it goes up to through the Civil War. And it’s just to me, it’s a really good movie. He didn’t like it. They called it a is a, like a, cheap Gone With the Wind or is bad Gone With the Wind. And it was panned by the critics, but I like it. It’s got some really good, good stuff.

Rick Barlow: [00:46:32] I’ll check if I can find it out. I’ll watch that. Maybe tonight. That sounds really

John Cornelison: [00:46:37] good. I enjoyed it. Good luck.

Rick Barlow: [00:46:42] in. it’s okay. I’m trying to think of the name of it’s Manhatten. Oh gosh. William Powell. And I think Myna Loy. And, Clark Gable. It’s not that great.

A movie, frankly. I mean, the, the key action in the movie that triggers the, the ending is to me kind of not believable. It seems like a choice that character wouldn’t actually make, but in any, in any event, it’s a movie that supposedly John Dillinger watched when he was in that movie theater, the night he was shot.

Okay. And in, in the,

John Cornelison: [00:47:27] man, the woman in red one.

Rick Barlow: [00:47:30] Yeah, but the movie is the Johnny Depp version of the Dylan Jer story. Okay. Michael, Mann, Michael Mann’s Public Enemies. They’ve got Johnny D in, in that theater, watching the Clark Gable character. And he’s being led to the execution chamber and, people, other prisoners are wishing him well, [00:48:00] and I think the line is die.

Like you live all of a sudden, it’s a great line. And I don’t think anybody could land it like Gable on his way to being executed.

John Cornelison: [00:48:16] So cable and Myrna Lloyd

Rick Barlow: [00:48:18] like Manhattan tragedy or Manhattan.

John Cornelison: [00:48:22] Oh, Manhattan melodrama. That’s

Rick Barlow: [00:48:24] it Manhattan. Yeah.

John Cornelison: [00:48:28] No, I don’t know that one. I have to check it out.

Rick Barlow: [00:48:30] Yeah. It’s it’s, it’s not that great a movie, but I’d watched the movie again, just for that last sequence where Gable is headed to execution and he’s just die.

Like you live all of a sudden, you know, all of a sudden. That’s true. You live all of a sudden. And I mean, some of that writing, it’s just fantastic

John Cornelison: [00:48:56] so much. It’s kind of like a win. So, he gave us not in that one, but, the Buccaneer, 59 or 58 version is that you rent. He’ll bring her.

Rick Barlow: [00:49:08] Yeah.

John Cornelison: [00:49:08] Yeah. He will bring the Yule Brenner one.

Charles is going to be executed, you know, and he’s given the speech about spitting in their eyes, you know? Yeah. That’s a really same thing. Kind of, you know, just not being afraid. Well, that’s pretty good. We’ll wrap it up for today.

Rick Barlow: [00:49:30] Okay.

Our next movie it’ll be, but we’ll come up with one.

John Cornelison: [00:49:36] Okay. I’ll find out. Let me see if I can find one this time and I’ve got a new software I’m going to try. We’re actually, you can edit the ums and stuff out and it’s as a text and it it’s the audio file. So, I’m going to try that and see how that works.

Excellent. Yeah, let’s definitely do it again next month. Make it a regular thing.

Rick Barlow: [00:50:01] Good deal. I’ll think of some movies and you think it’s in bullies and we’ll keep it rolling.

John Cornelison: [00:50:06] All right. That sounds good. And we’ll talk to you later.

Rick Barlow: [00:50:08] Thanks John. Take care. Thank you. Bye-bye.