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Overview
This movie will surprise you. It is a big blockbuster. In fact, it’s one of the chosen films to be on the criterion collection. It has ground breaking special effects. Ingrid Bergman lists it as an inspiration to his directing and Charlie Chaplin called it one of the best movies ever made. It’s a holiday ghost story based on a novel, like A Christmas Carol.
And you’ve probably never heard of it nor seen it, though it is still being shown on the big screen today. That’s quite a feat, considering it’s 100 years old.
Like many of the movies we watch, this one is worth laying your eyes on it, if for no other reason than to watch something that was so ground breaking and influential. It’s not for everyone considering it’s in black and white (so you have to read the cue cards), but it’s a fascinating study in how film making has changed but also how it’s stayed the same.
Check out the soundtrack. There are several modern soundtracks to this film. Yes, it’s popular enough that musicians are rewriting the music for it.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0012364
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phantom_Carriage
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Transcript
[00:00:46] Stephen: Alright. Episode four. Yes. Uh, we’re cruising right through this season and this one’s. Interesting [00:01:00] unique, a movie for us, a vulnerable thing. It’s the oldest movie, black and white it’s silent. So the Phantom carriage.
[00:01:10] Rhys: Yeah. I believe it’s the oldest film I have on the list. Oh
[00:01:16] Stephen: yeah. 19 25,
[00:01:18] Rhys: 19 21 21. Okay. And it is a Swedish, uh, silent movie to let you know how old that is.
[00:01:26] Rhys: The director’s daughter, whose name was Gucci lager vol died in 2019 at 101 years old. I was
[00:01:34] Stephen: going to say it’s a hundred years old this year.
[00:01:37] Rhys: She was born three years before this movie was released. So, um, and it’s still making the rounds. Yeah. This movie is actively playing, um, at the cinema tech in, uh, Cleveland Institute of art on the 19th of December in the theater on the big
[00:01:53] Stephen: screen and like the innocence, this one’s in the criteria and.
[00:01:57] Rhys: Yes, it is, uh, [00:02:00] like I noticed that like somebody listed with the spine number was on it and I was like, wow. Okay. I didn’t know. That was a thing, but, uh, yeah, it’s um, again, this is not a movie for the teens. Um, you’re if you are, you’re going to sit down, you’re going to look at it. You’re going to be like, this is doesn’t even really register as a horror movie, but yeah.
[00:02:21] Rhys: Um, it’s a historical horror movie. If you take a look at, uh, movie genres, horror movies actually started in the late 19th century, uh, around 1895 or so. Um, and most of them were just little tiny snippets. They didn’t last very long. They might’ve only been, you know, three to five minutes. Uh, but a lot of it was like someone walks into a house and there’s ghosts or skeletons, you know, here and there and they walk through and they’re spooked and they get out and that’s the end of the movie.
[00:02:53] Rhys: So. You’re not looking for giant complex, uh, what we would think of as horror movies, but [00:03:00] in the day, this would have been considered a horror movie.
[00:03:03] Stephen: And I read, uh, this was an inspiration for Inc Mar Bergman to come it director,
[00:03:11] Rhys: uh, so much so that Ingmar Bergman would, uh, like religiously watch this movie once a year in the summer at his own private theater in, you know, on his, on his grounds, which, you know, back then that was a big deal because you had to actually own the cellulite.
[00:03:33] Rhys: It was no VHS copy of this. Right. You had to thread it up and watch the whole thing. And
[00:03:38] Stephen: like you said, for today’s audience, it’s not going to hold up as, oh my gosh, that’s one of my top 10 horns. It just isn’t. Uh, but from the historical aspect, it’s cool to see because it was much more intricate than a lot of them.
[00:03:54] Stephen: And white movies. It was a heck of a lot longer, nothing else.
[00:03:58] Rhys: Oh yeah. Uh, Charlie [00:04:00] Chaplin claimed it was the greatest movie ever made. Wow. Yeah. And he was a guy who knew a lot about movies. I mean, everyone thinks of him as like the hat wearing kind of penguin walking kind of dude, but he was a movie mogul all on his own.
[00:04:14] Stephen: He started movie company. That’s still with us today. Please start him in a couple part.
[00:04:20] Rhys: Yeah. Um, it’s also morality play. Uh, the entire movie has a, has a moral to it. Uh, not unlike a Christmas, Carol. Uh, in fact I said, it’s kind of like a Christmas Carol. It’s a wonderful life in the shining, all mixed together in one big pot.
[00:04:43] Rhys: It is based on novel. Uh, the novel was written by an author by the name of Selma logger. Um, and it was called thou shall bear witness. Uh, she was very well-known for capturing life in rural Sweden at the [00:05:00] time. And she is the first woman to ever earn the Nobel prize for literature. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Um, she, uh, signed away all the rights to her unwritten books in 1919 to the Swedish cinema foundation.
[00:05:18] Rhys: And at the start of world war II, she gave her gold medals, which were actual gold back then. Like one was a Nobel and one was a Swedish academy award. Uh, she gave them to Finland to help them offset the price of fighting the Soviets for them to sell the gold, to help fund the war. Yeah.
[00:05:38] Stephen: Now that’s somebody that deserves a Nobel peace prize and someone to remember, you know, I can name some other people more recently that aren’t as.
[00:05:49] Rhys: Um, she was so popular and powerful in her day. The supernatural elements of this movie, according to Sweden’s censorship [00:06:00] laws at the time should have been cut or edited or changed, but the censorship board didn’t want to actually go up against her. So they left everything as it was shot. Oh, wow. Yeah. Um, so that’s summer Selma lagger off.
[00:06:18] Rhys: Uh, a lot of her movies are actually out there, uh, in Swedish, you know, ancient, sweetest cinema. The movie was directed by Victor, uh, Shoal stern. It’s got a J right after an S so
[00:06:37] Stephen: neither of us are Swedish.
[00:06:39] Rhys: Well, yes. Um, he was the actual. Uh, he plays David home in the film. He was the director. He wrote the screen play.
[00:06:51] Rhys: In fact, when he wrote the screenplay, he traveled to Legere off’s home and presented it to her, acting out all of the parts in [00:07:00] its entirety to get her blessing on the project before he would actually proceed with it. Wow.
[00:07:08] Stephen: I think that’s kind of cool. Cause I never thought of old movies like that being based on books and you know, for me, I thought this, it felt like a Grimm’s fairy tale home, um, or not necessarily Grimm’s, but a ASAP fable or something like that, you know, it just, it definitely fit the redemption Christmas ghost story thing that was really big and popular at.
[00:07:34] Rhys: Yes, absolutely. Uh, he directed 55 films in total and active in 46. And had writing credits in 25 of them. So he was pretty prolific and something, you have to remember when we go through like the stats and these people, a lot of these people were already older and established by the time cinema started.
[00:07:55] Rhys: So he wasn’t coming at this as like some 17 [00:08:00] year old model who want a shot to be in a movie. He was already, you know, older when this stuff started, he was born in Sweden and moved to Brooklyn as a child until his mother died when he was seven. And then he returned to Stockholm to live with relatives.
[00:08:19] Rhys: Uh, he did begin acting at 17 and made his first movie when he was 33 in 1912,
[00:08:29] Rhys: he directed over 40 movies in Sweden. Many of which ended up lost before he moved to Hollywood. So somewhere out there who knows, maybe someday someone will find a bunch of Victor Schultz. Films that were tucked away. Hopefully that’d be really cool if they did,
[00:08:46] Stephen: you know, what the, what makes you sad though, as you know, some of these people or their relatives die and others are clean and says, what’s this old junk, that’s it?
[00:08:55] Stephen: Yeah.
[00:08:56] Rhys: Yeah. Uh, he directed several more movies when he got to [00:09:00] Hollywood and then he got tired of how the world of direct directing was changing. Uh, you know, sound started and stars became more demanding and things. So he returned to Sweden and just acted, which he did up until his death in 1960. His greatest acting role was in an ink Mar Bergman film called wild strawberries in 1957.
[00:09:22] Stephen: Yeah. And you want a list of esoteric films? Go look up our Birdman. I mean, the only one I remember seeing is seventh seal. Um, but I recognized a few of the others, but just from the descriptions and cover the posters, I was like, no, Interesting movie. You
[00:09:41] Rhys: want to talk art house films? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, to prepare for his role as David home, he disguised himself as a poor homeless guy and lived among the impoverished and destitute in Stockholm for like a month, just to see what life was
[00:09:57] Stephen: like.
[00:09:58] Stephen: That’s much more than dedicated. [00:10:00] Then the Hollywood actors, I get a professional coach to come in on their time.
[00:10:07] Rhys: Um, Helga or Hilda, Borg, strum plays, David Holmes, wife and home. Here’s the problem we’re going to run into. She was an 82 other films. You’re not going to know any of them. Yeah. They’re super old. And they’re Swedish. So Taurus van Berg played, uh, George, the, the guy who plays the present Phantom carriage driver.
[00:10:33] Rhys: He was only in 11 movies, the last being in 1940, but he died in 1941. And when another one of those guys who started, you know, when the industry was very young and just didn’t last, because he was already older, Astrid home plays sister edicts, and she was in 15 films. Uh, the last of which was in 1947. And then she became a recluse just with true from
[00:10:59] Stephen: [00:11:00] society, too much of that.
[00:11:02] Stephen: Cause you know how demanding Swedish cinematography.
[00:11:06] Rhys: Yes. And then again, I love these little stories. Helga Brode felt plays the waitress and as an uncredited role, she’s just placed the waitress. This was her first film. She went on to do film in 108 other movies over 36 years. Wow. So an uncredited role launched her into this just giant career that spanned 36
[00:11:31] Stephen: years.
[00:11:31] Stephen: That’s funny. Cause I believe Harrison Ford’s first movie role was an uncredited. Yeah,
[00:11:39] Rhys: yeah. Into my Bergman claims, this is the film of all films. This was like the top of the line. It has a a hundred percent positive rating on rotten tomatoes. And it’s one of the 1001 movies you must see before you die by Steven Schneider turns out it’s a book.[00:12:00]
[00:12:00] Rhys: I was like, what is this list? I looked it up. It’s a book written by some guy named yes. Um, the churchyard that they use in that movie. Uh, one of the sets from the movie was built in a studio and it was left up for years afterwards. Other films would come in and just use it. Um, so it shows up in a lot of places.
[00:12:27] Rhys: It’s kind of like, um, old Tucson out in Arizona. If you’ve ever been there. You’ll, you’ll see it in a thousand different westerns cause.
[00:12:36] Stephen: So today’s, uh, Canon conscious people would say all those are the same shared universe. That’s right. Yeah. The graveyard it’s this portal
[00:12:48] Rhys: we watched 30 days of night last night.
[00:12:50] Rhys: Uh, yeah, just as an aside. Um, and I was like, see that girl there. Do you recognize her and prices like, well kind of I’m like, it’s the girl from [00:13:00] triangle. And so then he was saying, you know, cause she survives 30 days so night, then she must have moved to Florida.
[00:13:09] Rhys: If so, you know, that’s kind of a rough existence for her. Uh post-production on this film took five months, which at the time was an eternity. Yeah.
[00:13:19] Stephen: Because of the ghosts. I can see that cause I was very impressed with the NGOs for the time period. Uh, there aren’t too many movies that do that. Good. A special effect.
[00:13:29] Rhys: Well, and the special effects were managed with double and triple exposures because optical film, print printing, wasn’t even a thing for another 10 years. Right. So they couldn’t just sit there with the film and overlay it and stuff. They had to actually use mirrors and crap to bounce things onto the lens while they were filming it.
[00:13:48] Stephen: Wow. That actually makes it even cooler. Yeah.
[00:13:53] Rhys: And the last little production note I have on here, there’s a Norwegian heavy psychedelic rock [00:14:00] band called wi um, they did a live performance of the music at a screening in Toronto time, which is in normal. They wore cloaks and the lead singer sang all of the words on the cards as they came
[00:14:15] Stephen: up.
[00:14:17] Stephen: I would love to see that if we can find that that should be our bonus. So Steve had put
[00:14:23] Rhys: this, this thing out, this call out there. If you happen to have been at that performance comment below, let us know what
[00:14:31] Stephen: that was like. And it’s funny you say that because I heard it and I’m like, okay, I know this isn’t the original music.
[00:14:37] Stephen: At least the cut we have that because it was very Spacey and sound that I’m like, there’s no way that’s from then. Because back then the silent films, uh, they had orchestras in the PIP plate. She had piano and strings and horns and, or an Oregon a lot of times. Uh, so this was very synthesizer based. The cut [00:15:00] we have, it’s
[00:15:01] Rhys: true that the music that they attached with this, cause as you said, this is like the only.
[00:15:06] Rhys: Only version that’s out there. Yeah. The music is genuinely pretty creepy and it runs consistently throughout the film. They do this thing with like this, this rap rapping, like tapping sound. That happens a lot. Yeah. Clock like, and you’re like, yeah, that’s adds a little bit to the creepiness. Um, the movie is set in the Swedish town of Lenz kroner on new year’s Eve.
[00:15:35] Rhys: Um, and they don’t tell you what year it is, but, uh, yeah, you can almost date it a little bit just by looking at historically and the things that are happening, uh, it starts with a black screen and a title card. Well, the credits roll first. [00:16:00] Um, but the title card informs us, that sister, Edith of the salvation army is on her death bed.
[00:16:05] Rhys: She is attended by her mother and one of her fellow sisters, sister, Maria, as she is dying of galloping consumption, which she had been struggling with for a year. Um, so this was filmed in, um, like 19 20, 19 21. So the Spanish flu is still very much on everyone’s mind. Uh, and you can still have people who have tuberculosis.
[00:16:33] Rhys: So it’s hard to say exactly what galloping consumption is.
[00:16:38] Stephen: Um, consumption typically was Berkeley. Lotus galloping was a type that I knew that from all the vampire stuff I’ve studied
[00:16:49] Rhys: you and your vampires.
[00:16:51] Stephen: Hey, vampire was cool, man.
[00:16:56] Rhys: Uh, the salvation army, which plays [00:17:00] a critical role in this movie. I dug into this a little bit was founded in London in 1865 by a guy named William Booth and his wife at the time, it was called the east London Christian mission. And it was made to bring salvation to the poor destitute and hungry by meeting their spiritual and physical needs
[00:17:23] Stephen: in an effort you’re hungry and starving.
[00:17:25] Stephen: So let’s pray.
[00:17:26] Rhys: Yes. And an effort to convert them booth, uh, went by the title of general, which is where the whole military flavor of the salvation army started. And to this day, you know, people are soldiers and Colonel, you know, uh, the first salvation army meeting in Sweden happened in 1878. So that does kind of help us narrow the timeframe down.
[00:17:50] Rhys: It happened somewhere. This story takes by somewhere between 1878 and 1921.
[00:17:56] Stephen: I’ll give a year specifically. Uh, which I like, [00:18:00] because the story is very, uh, you know, again like a Christmas Carol, it’s something that can apply to today. Absolutely. If I’m right, it was based on a Swedish folk tale legend, uh, that it was based on.
[00:18:14] Stephen: So, uh, I liked that too, or at least it felt like it, but when I was looking at a few things up, uh, I thought I came across. It it’s based on,
[00:18:23] Rhys: well, it could be because the author again was very well-known for writing stories that captured, uh, life in Sweden at the time. You know? So the acting in this is not, you know, one of the things, one of the reasons that I’m not crazy about Nosferatu and it’s not because.
[00:18:44] Rhys: It’s a vampire movie because I have to respect the traditional Dracula story. And Nosferatu is just a twist on that, but I don’t like it because so much of silent films were recorded with [00:19:00] over the top acting because the people who are directing are like, we have to depict what’s going on. And the only way can do it is by, you know, just going way over the top.
[00:19:10] Rhys: Yes. Right. They don’t do that in this movie. No sister eat. It is probably the only one who really overacts on a kind of regular basis. She’s very, oh, oh, you know, this kind of thing. Um, and yeah, I don’t. I can’t sit there and tear it down too much for not being realistic enough because it’s 1921. But that is one of the things that I loved about this is that so many of these, you could take a still of what was happening and it could be an actual photo of people just being people.
[00:19:49] Rhys: You know, it does not feel over the top. Great. Um, eat its sister, eat it, sits up and asks the people who are present, which [00:20:00] is her mother and sister Maria, to go and find David home. And Maria and her mother seem a guest at this request. We don’t know who David home is at this point. And we’re like, wow, I don’t know why everyone’s upset.
[00:20:14] Rhys: And the mother asks a sister Maria, not to because sister Edith has given her life to help the salvation army and just let her last few moments be with her and her mother. But Marie, can’t not do what her friend is asking. And so she gets her a male counterpart, uh, Gustafson, who was also in the salvation army.
[00:20:39] Rhys: Um, he’s also a gas that she’s asking for David home on her deathbed, whoever this guy is, apparently he doesn’t have fans in this house. Right. But he agrees to help Maria go search the town for him and Maria heads out into the town. Uh, they do a [00:21:00] nice job of giving you a flavor for what the town is. Um, as she’s moving through, it seems cold.
[00:21:05] Rhys: It seems dark. It seems cramped. It seems impoverished. At least the areas that she happens to be going to, and they do this really cool thing when they’re filming it. Because most of the time it is shot in a, within a rectangular frame. But she shows up at this house, a sister Maria. And when she comes to the house, she goes inside and they cut to a scene of her coming to the door.
[00:21:33] Rhys: And instead of the rectangular frame, that’s around one, like bulls-eye, she’s, you know, this is where she wants to be. Um, so she goes inside and it looks incredibly impoverished. There’s two little urchins tucked away in bed, you know, and then sitting in the corner with her back to the entire rest of the room is this woman.
[00:21:55] Rhys: And it really had this kind of Blair witch vibe for me, you know, [00:22:00]
[00:22:00] Stephen: and yes, first of all, this whole beginning, I liked because of the way they presented the story, uh, which is again, probably why this is such a favorite movie for such a long time. It’s different than a lot of silent film. Silent films were very limited.
[00:22:19] Stephen: Uh, you know, start the beginning, you know, what’s going on as an audience member, every step of the way this had more of the flashback bits. So it’s a little more advanced storytelling in movies.
[00:22:31] Rhys: Yeah, it’s actually, um, when I was listing things, I probably could have put this as a literary horror too, because that’s much more of a literary type of device that you would use in a book than it is something that you would have used in movies at the time.
[00:22:46] Rhys: Yeah. Um, Gustafsson heads to the bar. So maybe this is who this David home guy is. He’s at the bar, but he doesn’t have any luck. Um, David home is not there. [00:23:00] Maria, however, grabs this woman whose name is Anna and it turns out, uh, her name is Anna home. She is David Holmes, wife wraps her up and takes her to see, uh, eating.
[00:23:13] Rhys: And there’s this scene where she’s like leaves Anna in the other room. And then she goes in and she’s with, um, Edith’s mother and they’re in the room. And Anna just walks in kind of like stumbles in almost in a trance-like state. And she walks over to where eat at sleeping and it looks like she’s going to throttle her.
[00:23:34] Rhys: I mean, like her hands are like in these claws and she’s leaning over her and either wakes up and embraces her. And there’s obviously some sort of issue between these two women. We’re not sure what it is. And she’s saying poor Mrs. Home, poor Mrs. Home. Um, and then Maria is like, I’m going to take her home just on the offhand chance we find David home because it would not do for him [00:24:00] to see her here.
[00:24:01] Rhys: Right. Again, we don’t know why.
[00:24:04] Stephen: And I love also, you know, we know she’s got tuberculosis and she kisses the lady all over the T. This is all of which, again comes up later in a couple of minutes, but I was like, oh, well we understand germs, but we don’t really know how this is transmitted. Do we?
[00:24:20] Rhys: Yeah. Um, then we find out D we F we finally see David home.
[00:24:26] Rhys: He’s hanging out in the church yard drinking with two of his friends. And they joke about how scary it is to be among the dead waiting for new years, because they’re sitting in a cemetery drinking right above the church clock, and they make a joke about, you know, when it hits midnight, we’re going to be the first to know, cause we’re sitting right down here, um, and to pass the remaining hour.
[00:24:49] Rhys: And this is such a literary device from the turn of the century. David’s going to tell his comrades, this story, just to pass the hour, I’m going to tell you a story. So he [00:25:00] tells him about his friend, George. George was an educated man. And while he’s telling the story, they do a flashback. So they cut back and they show their show.
[00:25:13] Rhys: This it’s not actually David telling the story. George was an educated man. He had gone to a university, came back to town, but he liked to hang out with the rest of the homeless alcoholics. He enjoyed hanging out with them in like these boarding houses, where they live. Right. Um, and I, I don’t know that that’s, I don’t know if that was like a, an artifact of the time or the place, whether, whether Sweden was just like, you know what shit gets cold out here.
[00:25:47] Rhys: So we got to give people places to pass out.
[00:25:51] Stephen: I was wondering about that. I was wondering because the men’s boarding house seemed a little weird and creepy a hundred years later. Uh, I mean, I understood what [00:26:00] it was, but I’m like, wow. You know, people would probably flip out 20 men all in a room, half naked, it looked like.
[00:26:08] Rhys: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, and George liked to hang out with these guys, but a change would come over to George on new year’s Eve. He would stay in, he would sleep. Um, and you see, David is there playing cards with his friends. They get into a fight and George gets up really upset and breaks up the fight. And he explains the whole premise of the movie right here.
[00:26:30] Rhys: And he’s like, if you die on the last stroke of the clock on new year’s Eve, you become the driver for death’s carriage for a year. You have to collect the souls who died and deliver them to. And they show great premise. I love that. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. It is. I might actually try and hit that date. Actually.
[00:26:54] Rhys: It kind of sounds like a good gig and it’s going to happen. Yes. Um, and so they show you [00:27:00] a shot of the cart and it’s ghostly and you can see through it again, not an easy thing to do in 1921. Right. And they do the carts, very rickety looking and they do this brilliant thing. They take the horse and they paint vertical stripes on it.
[00:27:16] Rhys: I mean, not vertical. They, they, these diagonal stripes on it. So it looks like the horses emaciated, like you can just see it’s ribs.
[00:27:23] Stephen: I was wondering about that. Cause I’m like, well, there was no humane society. That’s true.
[00:27:28] Rhys: No, but if you look at it, the horse is actually like, you know, it’s just a horse, but, um, and then it says this end section one and the movie it turns out is broken down into, I think, five different sections.
[00:27:43] Rhys: Yes. So, uh, I thought that was really interesting that they’re just going to come right out and say, you know, we’re doing this in chapters and this is the end of the first
[00:27:52] Stephen: chapter, which was very common actually to do at least if nothing else, that intermission, because you know, [00:28:00] people just can’t sit for more than 35, 40 minutes.
[00:28:03] Rhys: I think it also lends itself to the, uh, to the roots of cinema, which is the theater, which has always been done in act
[00:28:13] Stephen: exactly greed. And I must say right here, oh, these guys that were in the boarding house, how did the Swedish get such glorious mustache? It, I mean, every single one of those guys had like this whole big caterpillar thing growing and they were like very noticeable.
[00:28:29] Rhys: Absolutely. And it turns out the David home doesn’t always have that mustache as we find out here in a little bit, uh, which makes me wonder whether they filmed here. Later after he shaved it off and then spliced it in, which seems pretty advanced in 1921, or if his mustache was a fake throughout the whole movie.
[00:28:53] Stephen: Yeah. I don’t know. I was going to say for some of this scenes where the [00:29:00] driver’s collecting souls, this is where I think it would lose modern audiences more because some of those were quite long. It was like several minutes of the carriage going across waves and just sitting there, you’re staring at it now a hundred years ago when you’d only ever seen one or two movies probably ever in your life.
[00:29:20] Stephen: It was probably like still cool, but I can see how that would be something that would lose people nowadays, if nothing else.
[00:29:28] Rhys: Yeah. So you’re talking about this first section here. Uh, George says wherever he goes, he is greeted with sorrow and despair, meaning the driver of the chariot. And there are shots of the carriage making stops using second and third exposure.
[00:29:44] Rhys: So it’s transparent and death comes for the wealthy and the poor. There’s a rich man who shoots himself and there’s a sailor who drowns and you’re right. They’re very, very long scenes, but this is very similar to, uh, [00:30:00] The start of star wars or, um, or the black hole where you have these incredibly long, uh, setting shots where the camera’s going very slowly across the outside of this star cruiser, because at the time that was super cool to look at it.
[00:30:20] Rhys: You try to soak up as much detail as you could. Right. You know, nowadays kids see that all the time. So those shots tend to be a lot shorter than they were in 1970 in 1921, seeing a guy driving a cart over the waves of the ocean would have blown people’s minds. So
[00:30:38] Stephen: exactly what I said, but I’m sure it looked awesome a hundred years ago.
[00:30:43] Rhys: Yup. They just sat there and just soak it in. They’re like, wow. David finishes this tale by informing them that George died on new year’s Eve. Huh? That’s a. Then there’s a shot of Edith complaining that Gustafsson isn’t [00:31:00] back yet. And then we cut to Gustafsson who sees David in his comrades, in the church yard.
[00:31:05] Rhys: And he comes up and he’s like, sister, Edith Stein. You know, she’s asked for, you have to come. And David’s like, I’m not going this off, get out of here. And so Gustafson’s tired of arguing with him and leaves. Then David’s comrades are like, you’ve got to go. This is sister, eat it. And she’s dying. She’s asked for you.
[00:31:26] Rhys: He’s like, no, they get into this big fight. He takes a bottle to the back of the head and that’s the end of David home. And it happens, this is the church bells start to ring
[00:31:36] Stephen: midnight. Right. And, and for a fight scene, this was an over the top exaggerated fight scene that you’re like, oh, come on. But again, in the perspective of time,
[00:31:47] Rhys: it’s in the perspective of the time.
[00:31:49] Rhys: I’m willing to give those paths. They, they didn’t have the, uh, jet Lee’s there teaching them, you know, how to do good fight scenes. Right? [00:32:00] Uh, here comes the carriage coming right up to the lifeless body of David home. And it’s driven by no other than no one other than George George happens to be driving the carriage.
[00:32:11] Rhys: And David doesn’t seem to get it because George comes over and he’s like, you should put me in your cart and take me to the hospital. And George is like, no living soul rides in this cart. By the time I arrive at is too late for a doctor. Um, and then George points, that’s David, um, you know, that I’m dead.
[00:32:33] Rhys: Right? And then George says, you know what just happened to you? Right. And it starts to Dawn on David that, um, Oh, I’m in a little bit of trouble here. I appear to be dead. And what time is it? Oh, crap. Right
[00:32:55] Stephen: back to that, that he gets done and he lies back down on his [00:33:00] dead body.
[00:33:01] Rhys: Yes. Um, George claims that he is responsible for the condition that David is in and we’re treated to a flashback of David’s previous life before the mustache, apparently mustaches make Swedish men into a homeless jobless alcoholics, because Gus Gustafson doesn’t have one.
[00:33:23] Rhys: Right.
[00:33:24] Stephen: And I, I, this is one of the other things, again, it’s the filming, the age of the whatever, but it got difficult occasionally to tell people apart, because just about everybody wore the same type of clothes and they looked very similar on the film. Uh, you know, Bleached out at times, but it doesn’t give the perspective.
[00:33:44] Stephen: Like we see nowadays even a 2d film. So there were a couple times I’m like, okay, which guy is this? And which woman is this? Is this sister eat it now in the flashback? Or is this the wife? Or is this somebody, you know, there were, it, it did take a little bit [00:34:00] of paying attention to make sure you know, who was in the scene and what time period.
[00:34:05] Rhys: Yeah. And that actually does come up. Um, we’re treated to a flashback of David’s previous life without the mustache. He worked in wood shop. He spent time with his family on picnics, teaching his kids how to swim, hung out with his brother. And then there’s, uh, uh, you know, while they’re at this picnic, a little ways away is George with two other guys getting hammered and they’re just singing and it’s great.
[00:34:29] Rhys: And apparently David starts hanging out with George, uh, one night, uh, Anna is there with their children eating dinner and the door opens and it’s, um, David’s. And he’s drunk and he throws the kids away from the table so he can pass out on the couch right there. And she’s so offended. She gathers the kids and walks outside only to find the David is passed out in the street, right in front of her house.
[00:34:55] Rhys: And George is their new, like tips his hat to her and walks off like, [00:35:00] oh, sorry, misses.
[00:35:05] Rhys: Then David wakes up, um, in jail, he had to serve time for public intoxication, but the warden informs him before he goes that his brother is also in jail for killing a man while drunk. And because he considers David to be the one responsible for his brother’s drinking, he’s giving David the chance to serve his sentence instead of his brother, which
I
[00:35:29] Stephen: was like, wow, what a justice system.
[00:35:32] Rhys: Yeah. Especially when the warden can do that. Who needs judges?
[00:35:38] Stephen: It must’ve been, or maybe it’s so is the culture because death does the same thing. They’re like, please give me just a few more minutes or let me let you know, let me serve this other thing. Yeah. You know, he does it several times. So it must’ve been a thing with the culture at the time.
[00:35:55] Stephen: It might still be, I don’t know. Um, but I found that interesting that so many [00:36:00] characters or in a justice format, death, or the jailer, uh, like, yeah, you know, I’ll make an executive decision and we’ll let you serve his, uh, the carriage or whatever.
[00:36:14] Rhys: Uh, David takes the offer, you know, very notably takes the offer and promises to become a reformed man.
[00:36:20] Rhys: And that’s the end of part, two part three starts with David getting out of jail and he comes home to find his door law. Um, fortunately they keep a key under the mat. Nice to know people have been doing that forever.
[00:36:35] Stephen: Like thieves will never think of that. Nowadays
[00:36:39] Rhys: pulls the key out, unlocks and goes in to find the Ana has taken the children and left him.
[00:36:45] Rhys: And he’s like, if she would’ve just said she was out, that would’ve been fine, but slinking off in the middle of the night, like this, he’s going to hunt her down and make her pay for this.
[00:36:56] Stephen: And I do like how they portray his thinking and [00:37:00] actions throughout the whole thing. Um, and the, the, I guess, you know, the statement it could be making about drinking alcohol and that hasn’t changed much for a hundred years, you know, a lot, pretty much all of this story.
[00:37:14] Stephen: This movie could be re bill nowadays updated just a little bit with the filming in that, but the basic story. Yeah. Timeless. Yeah. Which is why it’s. So
[00:37:26] Rhys: yeah. George then points out to David. How much has hatred for his wife grew over the year that he left to search for her. And then a year ago on new year’s Eve, the salvation co salvation army comes into town and sisters, Maria, and eat it or setting up a bunk house and their first client David home, he comes in.
[00:37:51] Rhys: They’re like, do you want food? He’s like, God, I need any food. And I just want somewhere to sleep. He’s belligerence. He’s a complete ass [00:38:00] coasts in and passes out on the Cod. Yeah, he does take his jacket off before he does, because sister eat it, picks it up and Maria’s like, uh, there’s germs all over that.
[00:38:10] Rhys: And we don’t have our sterilization things set up. You should just set that back down. Yes. Sterilization oven. I
[00:38:18] Stephen: love, I love this. A couple of things as this scene made me chuckle. Number one. Uh, oh, he he’s got tuberculosis. You’re gonna catch it from the. Well, no, I’m glad you understand a little bit about Germans, but that’s really not how it was Jay Kim coughing all over.
[00:38:34] Stephen: Everybody did it, which they do bring up. Um, but then it also, uh, cracked me up. It’s like, you know, here I am, this drunk belligerent guy and you’re gonna fall in love with the romance. Subplot could use a little tweaking and work.
[00:38:51] Rhys: Yeah. It’s well, it’s so odd because she is [00:39:00] this Paragon of goodness. You know, she’s seeking to reform people and you know, how often do you see this?
[00:39:07] Rhys: We’re like, here’s this broken man I can fix. And, you know, she takes the coat despite the warnings and stays up all night, patching it and fixing it. And, um, then
[00:39:24] Stephen: you know what I don’t know about. But my wife that I’m already married to would not stay up all night patching and fixing my coat. So there’s gotta be some feelings here.
[00:39:34] Rhys: Yeah. Well, she repairs the coat and praise to God that their first client be blessed with a blessing a year. Um, and then they mentioned, yeah. Uh, then they mentioned she’s been in her hailing germs this whole time and her room is super cold and then she goes to bed. So, you know, apparently these are the marks for catching disease, inhaling germs [00:40:00] check, cold room check.
[00:40:02] Stephen: Oh. So all the women in the audience are and grabbing their, whoever dates, uh, arm like, oh my gosh, this is scary.
[00:40:10] Rhys: Yes. Yeah. David awakens in the morning inspects his coat and he’s like really goes over it and he puts it on he’s. He’s got a cough. So now this is the first we’ve seen him with this. Uh, he calls for Maria and asks you fixed his coat while he’s having breakfast and asks, if Maria could go get her.
[00:40:33] Rhys: And he seems like he’s pleased. And so she’s excited and she goes and gets, eat it and brings it back. And when she shows up, he rips out all of the repairs she did and laughs in her face. And he’s like, it’s a shame. You put so much effort in this. Cause I’ve grown, used to it being like crap. Um, and then she
[00:40:56] Stephen: makes kind of the bastard he’s become.
[00:40:58] Stephen: Yes.
[00:40:59] Rhys: [00:41:00] Uh, she makes a request come back in a year and let me know how your year went because I prayed for you. And he’s like, God doesn’t care. God doesn’t care about your prayers. He doesn’t care about me. He doesn’t care about your requests. I’ll be back in. You’ll see. He doesn’t care about
[00:41:15] Stephen: your Twaddle.
[00:41:16] Stephen: Yes,
[00:41:18] Rhys: yes and no. That’s not a word for genitalia of any kind. It’s just. It’s an old timey word for your
[00:41:27] Stephen: nonsense. I remember my grandparents actually, isn’t it.
[00:41:32] Rhys: Um, now we’re back to the present and George is reminding David of his obligation to be death’s driver. And he’s going to force David to go see, eat it.
[00:41:40] Rhys: Cause she’s dying from consumption. She caught from him and he Ozer of visit before she dies. So this is where David’s like and he jumps back into his old body, like he’s hiding. Right? And then George is like, okay, I got to do this officially. He pulls up his hood and says, captive, take [00:42:00] leave of the prison.
[00:42:02] Rhys: And at this point, David looks down at his body and he’s like, ah, I guess I’m dead. Yeah. So George is like, yeah. And you got to become the driver of this thing. And David, like an idiot decides he’s going to go rustle with death. So he runs over to fight with George and George pretty effortlessly. Ties his hands and his legs up and knocks him down and then picks him up.
[00:42:28] Rhys: Like he weighs nothing and sets him in the carriage. So I don’t think David had a chance in that fight. No, not
[00:42:35] Stephen: against death. I there’s other stories about people fighting wrestling that, that yes. And there, these parts, uh, parts 1, 2, 3. There were, I, I, again, I don’t know if it was a time whenever, but there’s several other little sections that just get a little long.
[00:42:54] Stephen: They just keep going over and over and over the same information that we already have in the scene just stretches out. [00:43:00] Um, so that, I mean, that does add to the overall length, but I really think some of it could have been shortened a bit and still kept all the same story. And that probably been a little scarier
[00:43:12] Rhys: looking back on it.
[00:43:13] Rhys: Yeah, it would have done well with a good edit, but. At the time, the amount of effort that went into every scene they filmed and the amount of costs that went into every scene that they filmed. I can see them saying, no, we shot it. It’s going in the damn movie.
[00:43:33] Stephen: Yeah. Can you imagine them coming up to a hundred years and seeing budgets of 500 million in movies making the half a billion dollars in whatever, you know?
[00:43:44] Rhys: Yeah. That was, that was the budget of all of Scandinavia in 1921. Uh, that was the end of part three. Um, either consents that someone has come to visit her and she sits up all excited. [00:44:00] Uh, George gets up and leads David, the bound David into the house. And it’s really kind of cool because eat it’s mother and Gustafsson are hanging out in the front room.
[00:44:14] Rhys: George walks right through the door and walks right past them. And they don’t even acknowledge that he’s there. Um, so he did a, he goes right into the bedroom and she’s excited that someone’s coming. And then she realizes that it’s an agent of death and she tells him I’m not scared to die, but she regrets not getting to see David before she does.
[00:44:36] Rhys: And she tries to put him off a little longer. She’s like, give me a day’s grace for there. Someone I must talk sense into
[00:44:43] Stephen: Andrew. Yeah, sure. This is the most easy going death that I’ve seen in any.
[00:44:50] Rhys: Oh, he, when he comes in, he tosses David onto the floor. So she doesn’t know that David’s there. David is hearing all of this.
[00:44:58] Rhys: She claims that she’s [00:45:00] responsible for his sorry state and that he is the man that she loves. And then George tells her look, I would give you this time, but it’s too late. You hold no sway over this. You have tried and tried, but he is a lost cause.
[00:45:18] Stephen: And th th you see a lot of good overacting and David right here.
[00:45:22] Rhys: Yes. Yes. Well, it goes into another flashback and we say all the time, she tried to help him and he was just a douche bag to her. Um, she’s at the bar passing out flyers with salvation army. He’s crumpling them up. Um, he’s accused by someone’s wife as being a bad influence on her husband. She appeals to David’s brother.
[00:45:44] Rhys: Now this hearkens back to where you’re like, I don’t even know who these people are. Right. Um, it took me like the third time through to realize that was his brother in the bar. And she’s appealing to him to come to the salvation army meeting. And David says, yeah, go, go and [00:46:00] be saved. I’ll come and watch.
[00:46:02] Rhys: And so his brother leaves and when he does brilliantly. They go back to the circular framing and zoom in really tight on him. So he is all alone. He’s just there drinking a drink. He’s left in the bar, drinking a drink by himself. He has no one. I mean, that’s really what they were getting, what with this whole framing thing.
[00:46:25] Stephen: Yeah. And, and a side note on that, some of these techniques last up through the sixties and into the seventies, but the spotlight on women, especially their faces, eyes and stuff, and the smudging with Vaseline to make things look odd and star Trek even did the vocal thing occasionally. And it had literally, it was like cardboard with a cold cutout, like what a kid would do almost now, you know?
[00:46:56] Stephen: Uh, I love that those types of things.
[00:46:59] Rhys: [00:47:00] Yes. 1921 was just our children with us with an iPhone. Yeah. The scene, uh, is the rally. And this is where we find out what a complete douchebag that David home has become. Um, they’re, they’re having the rally, there’s playing music, they’re singing. Um, David home sees this woman who has consumption.
[00:47:23] Rhys: She has socially distanced herself away from everybody. And he comes as a
[00:47:27] Stephen: hundred years later.
[00:47:30] Rhys: Yes. Again, Spanish flu has already been through so
[00:47:34] Stephen: well, there were people that didn’t believe it, but that’s a whole another discussion for another time.
[00:47:39] Rhys: Yeah. Um, he comes over and he like yells at her. He’s like, you should be coughing among all these people.
[00:47:47] Rhys: I have consumption. And who are they to think they’re better than, than us who have it. I hope they all get it and eat it, eat. It comes to his [00:48:00] rescue, like to this lady, she’s like, oh, he’s just amusing himself. He’s not as wicked as he really seems. And she asks him to stay at the salvation army so she can challenge him again.
[00:48:13] Rhys: And he says he would, but he’s been coming Sweden looking for someone. And he wouldn’t say who it was. But at the salvation army rally, there happens to be this mysterious woman who was watching him and eat it, sees her and goes over and confronts her. And the woman admits that she is his wife and caretaker of their two children.
[00:48:33] Rhys: And there’s this scene with both of them in it where like Eden eat it, it’s taken aback because here’s this man that she loves and here’s his wife. Um, and then she just, she does the right thing, you know, the, the right thing. And she’s like, you’ve got to take him back. It’s the only way we can, you know, save him,
[00:48:55] Stephen: which, you know, it was probably the part they would change.
[00:48:58] Stephen: And today’s.[00:49:00]
[00:49:03] Rhys: Um, eat it, hassles her until she finally says yes. And Gustafsson is set to take David. Who’s all cleaned up, wearing a hat and a suit to see Anna and the children is a surprise and he shows up. And as soon as he steps inside the room, this is one of those things like I’m in audition where the guy walks into the abandoned, uh, dance studio and just automatically takes his shoes off for as much of a, of a shit as David is, he walks into this house and he takes his hat off as soon as he walks in, because that’s just a socially appropriate thing you’re supposed to do.
[00:49:39] Rhys: He just does it automatically. Okay.
[00:49:41] Stephen: And honestly, I would bet that that’s so ingrained in the filmmakers and actors. They never even thought about it where as if they had thought about it, he left the hat on. That would just kind of show his character. There probably wasn’t even considered. It’s one of those little, uh, you know, [00:50:00] little Easter egg plot holes.
[00:50:01] Rhys: Just one of those things he’s going to do. Um, he sees Anna and eat it physically puts his hand in hers and they stand there. Um, and then Anna, Anna seems like she’s contrite and she’s, you know, like apologizing and that’s the end of the scene. And the end of that last, that part. And then we are to section five, the final piece.
[00:50:24] Rhys: Yes. And it’s yes, it is. It is fine. It is still the flashback, but it’s the recent past. This is it. It has been sick now for a while. And it’s been pneumonia that she’s had since last new year’s Eve and Gustafsson and Maria are trying to hide the truth about how David and Anna home are because she’s so sick.
[00:50:47] Rhys: And then we find out what they mean. Um, David comes home drunk while Anna is sewing and, and the door’s locked and he just starts kicking it. And she opens it to let him in. So he won’t wake the kids and he [00:51:00] is a belligerent asshole. And then he heads over to his kids while they’re sleeping and flicks one of them in the face while they’re sleeping.
[00:51:09] Rhys: Then he purposely starts to cough on them in an effort to give them consumption. And that’s too much for Anna. She finally steps in rebukes him and he takes the cloth. She was sewing, coughs it, licks it, and then throws it back into her face.
[00:51:28] Stephen: So I guess that did kind of show what he’s like, whether he took his hat off or not.
[00:51:33] Rhys: Yeah. Um, he heads into the kitchen and he’s going through stuff and it made me wonder if he’s looking for me. Cause he’s like going through these pots, you know, and you hear, it used to be a thing that like old wives would keep money hidden in a jar, somewhere in the kitchen, you know, their egg money or whatever.
[00:51:54] Rhys: My
[00:51:54] Stephen: father did, stuff like that. Yeah.
[00:51:58] Rhys: Um, so she locks [00:52:00] the door when he goes in and this shows you how much more quality the doors were back then than they are. Now. She locks the door and starts to bundle the kids up, to get them out of there. And he tries the door and finds that it’s locked and goes over to the wood.
[00:52:18] Rhys: Cupboard, pulls out an ax and just starts to hack at the
[00:52:21] Stephen: door. It reminds me of the.
[00:52:23] Rhys: Stanley Kubrick has credited this scene for that famous peers. Yes.
[00:52:30] Stephen: The David does stick his head in the hole. He didn’t, but
[00:52:34] Rhys: this was the impetus for that scene in the shining with here’s
[00:52:37] Stephen: Johnny, this first thing I thought of, and I also thought it was kind of funny besides, like you said, the doors like were solid and held back, but the whole time he’s doing it, she’s bundling the kids up, looking over and bundling the kids looking over and I’m like, lady just run, forget about the kids up.
[00:52:55] Rhys: And that was so interesting. Cause like their clothes are so complex back [00:53:00] then. Right. She’s sitting there like just, she didn’t even finish one of them by the time he finally got through the door and it took him a long time to get through the door. Um, and she faints any shoes, the kids to bed and wakes her up and you’re like, oh, what’s the fainting something it’s like turning a new leaf.
[00:53:19] Rhys: And he’s like, You’re not going to be able to run away so easily this time. And he, I mean, he’s just like being a complete evil bastard is what it is. She asked him if he hasn’t had enough revenge and then it fades to black and we’re back in the present. And David home was listening to all of this and eat it is tormenting herself, blaming herself for the sorry, state of his soul, because she’s the one who brought them back together again.
[00:53:50] Rhys: And now she’s begging for an extension and she loves him more now than she ever did in the past. And he manages to somehow break his bonds and [00:54:00] crawl over to the bed. And when he touches her hand, she can see him and he seems truly contrite. And George pulls up his hood and he’s like captive, ye of loving hearts take leave of die prison.
[00:54:13] Stephen: I was waiting for a, um, would be Goldberg. And, uh, what’s his name? From a ghost dancing. Yeah. Patrick, it was very much like those scenes. Yeah.
[00:54:27] Rhys: Yeah. Um, when George says that she sits back and she dies and George tells David, they need to go because those who will come to collect her soul will be there shortly.
[00:54:38] Rhys: So apparently there’s not just one guy who collects the souls of the dead. There’s just the one guy that you don’t want to see coming to get you. And then the other good people.
[00:54:48] Stephen: Yeah. Which then I thought about that, I’m like, because either they said it or I read it or something that was kind of based on a legend of whatever, I’m like, wow.
[00:54:59] Stephen: That [00:55:00] that’s, that could really be a good series, a TV show, a book series, whatever that the carriage drivers of death, the good and bad that, and possibly even more than one, you know, kind of like what was that TV show with? Uh, the reapers of, with Mandy Patinkin. Uh, focused on the like teenage girl that died with the toilet seat Hitler.
[00:55:22] Stephen: And, uh, they were all deaf, uh, reapers all, look it up, maybe put it in the show notes, but I was like, wow, that could be an interesting fun anthology, adventure series or something, you know? Oh yeah.
[00:55:33] Rhys: You could do it every week kind of thing. Yeah.
[00:55:37] Stephen: Telling the stories they used to have westerns like that, like the gun where everybody who got the gun, you would see that week, their story of,
[00:55:45] Rhys: so what was that called?
[00:55:46] Rhys: The one with the gun.
[00:55:49] Stephen: I thought it was just called the gun.
[00:55:51] Rhys: There’s a comic book series too. That is, that is
[00:55:55] Stephen: like that. Yeah. It’s I mean, it’s a common type of thing, but I thought the deaf [00:56:00] carriage would be, uh, interesting. Yeah.
[00:56:04] Rhys: Uh, now they’re back in the carriage and George tells David and here it is, we’re going to tie the whole story up in a book.
[00:56:12] Rhys: He, he, George sells David. He wishes he could teach the world a new year’s Eve prayer. And it’s the whole moral of the story board. Please let my soul come to maturity before it is reaped. Then the carriage heads to David Holmes house, much to his dismay and David Holmes. Like what are we doing here? Wait a second.
[00:56:34] Rhys: No, one’s dying in here. Why are we here? And
[00:56:38] Stephen: it’s funny. Cause you know, a bit ago he was trying to kill his kids,
[00:56:44] Rhys: giving them consumption and stuff. Um, he goes in and Anna is there and she’s looking at her kids asleep and she’s like, I just can’t, I can’t do this anymore. And she’s poisoning herself and her kids in a pot of tea.
[00:56:58] Rhys: She’s like mixing poison [00:57:00] into the tea. And David’s like, you’ve got to stop this. And George’s like, it’s my job to just watch and wait. That’s what I’m here to do. I can’t interfere with the lives of the living. David’s freaking out. And in the end he falls on his knees, literally falls to his knees and prays to God, this whole giant prayer of contrition.
[00:57:26] Rhys: Are you still there? This one’s on me. I think let’s see if it re if it catches back up.
[00:57:43] Rhys: Oh, okay. I reconnected.
[00:57:53] Rhys: Hi there. What happened? My, my wifi we’ll do this periodically where it’ll just [00:58:00] take 30 seconds. And disconnect everyone in the house.
[00:58:04] Stephen: Oh, well, that’s nice if it’s middle of the night.
[00:58:07] Rhys: Well, yeah, it’s really weird. And then it just comes back on and you’re like, oh crap. So this I’m happy to say it’s the first time it’s ever actually happened while we’ve been recording.
[00:58:18] Stephen: So yeah. Oh, I saw you were just saying to the drivers says he has to, uh,
[00:58:26] Rhys: yes. And David falls literally falls to his knees and is praying to God, this whole prayer of contrition, just please God prevent these deaths. Um, but God does not directly intervene. God, doesn’t like, come in, like make the tea, pot explode or anything like that.
[00:58:45] Rhys: INSEAD David’s soul is returned to his body and he awakens and David returns home in time to save everyone’s life and become a loving husband and father. And that is the end of the film. [00:59:00]
[00:59:01] Stephen: Like I said Christmas redemption. Yes. The lines of Christmas, Carol. Um, and shoot, I forgot what I was going to say. Oh, I find it very interesting at, they talked a lot about God and Jesus and they were praying.
[00:59:17] Stephen: So death, the carriage drivers, they’re all basically in the service of God, there, there were, you know, there are another job you can get instead of angel.
[00:59:27] Rhys: Yes. I, I also find it really interesting because, and I’ve noticed this is like a pretty common trend lately. Um, like with supernatural or like with Lucifer and all these other series, they talk about God and the devil, but they always shy away from the whole full-on Christianity thing.
[00:59:50] Rhys: Jesus is never mentioned. They will touch that. Right. In Lucifer for crying out loud, you’re talking about the [01:00:00] angels of heaven. They refer to God is their father, you know, like they are his children and it’s like, Hmm, didn’t God have another son that he, at one point in time sent to earth and I get it, you know, it’s like the third rail, you know, on the subway car, you don’t want to touch it.
[01:00:21] Rhys: Cause it’s really hot. Well,
[01:00:23] Stephen: what I thought it was actually is that the old Testament is in the public domain, but the new title. Oh, that’s right.
[01:00:31] Rhys: Yeah. It’s, it’s a matter of yeah. Who has the rights to it? Um, well, and this, this, you know, this is prior time, way back when he literally, he prays to God, he prays to Jesus.
[01:00:44] Rhys: Yeah. He doesn’t know which one to pray to. So he mentioned some both, I mean, that’s literally in his prayer, he’s like God or Jesus, I it’s just, someone stopped this from happening kind of thing, Easter buddy. Yeah. And then God’s like, Nope, go do it yourself. [01:01:00] Right. So he does.
[01:01:02] Stephen: So it’s a very tragic story. Uh, well redemption, but I mean, you know, it’s got some pretty heavy parts.
[01:01:08] Stephen: Again, the story itself could be used in a movie today. You know, anyone listening, it’s just, you know, if there’s best yet a student who was in school, this would be a great thing to remake. Um, do not
[01:01:20] Rhys: remake close encounters of the third kind. It’s only 30 years old. This thing’s been around for a hundred years.
[01:01:28] Rhys: Pick it up and run
[01:01:29] Stephen: with it. Yeah. I mean, it’s been in the criteria in collection, but it’s still something 99% of the people probably have never seen or heard of, or.
[01:01:40] Rhys: I just, it’s so fascinating to me, like back in 1921, they take this Paragon of virtue. Like, I don’t want to say the hero of the story because the story is about an anti hero.
[01:01:52] Rhys: Really? David home is the hero of the story, but sister eat it still dies at the end. Yeah. You know what I mean? [01:02:00] And it’s like,
[01:02:01] Stephen: you can’t keep her alive because she yearns for him. So now you got a three-way triangle thing going on.
[01:02:06] Rhys: I love triangle going on the fandom carriage to
[01:02:13] Stephen: for Gustafson or George’s, he’s still stuck as a carry driver for seven years.
[01:02:18] Stephen: Like, dammit. He told me one year. I
[01:02:20] Rhys: did think about that too, because David goes back to his body. George is still stuck
[01:02:27] Stephen: as the driver. They said it’s a hundred years for every day. So I’m like that’s 365,000 years of field.
[01:02:35] Rhys: Yeah. And that makes sense. Because if you’re the only one guy driving the carriage, time’s got to slow down.
[01:02:43] Rhys: Cause you got a lot of ground to cover.
[01:02:46] Stephen: Not as many people back then, but still yeah.
[01:02:49] Rhys: Yeah. They have to have at least like four carriages now. Right. I
[01:02:52] Stephen: mean, come on. They’d probably put in a jet engine. Yeah. There you go. Update it like Santa [01:03:00] Claus has been.
[01:03:01] Rhys: Yeah, well that is uh, the Phantom carriage.
[01:03:06] Stephen: Yeah.
[01:03:07] Stephen: Good, good, good one. And you know, for the silent film choice of our movies is so far. Yes.
[01:03:13] Rhys: Yeah. Um, I, again, one of the main reasons like I can, I can see people already, you know, watch do this nut Nosferatu and Hey, Steve’s already seen Nosferatu. I guarantee it loves him some vampires.
[01:03:32] Stephen: It was one of the first vampire movies and too,
[01:03:35] Rhys: I don’t like how.
[01:03:37] Rhys: The over the top acting that occurs in Nosferatu. That’s what I found. So fascinating because the question was always like, could they act well back then? And you look at the Phantom carriage and yeah, they actually could, it was not what, wasn’t a question of their acting ability. It was the direction that they were given.
[01:03:55] Stephen: Yeah, exactly. And you know, again, our, our edict for [01:04:00] doing these are movies that most people have. It knows fraud too. People know that. I mean, they have t-shirts with Nosferatu, so that’s two pop colors. Yeah.
[01:04:09] Rhys: Someone’s got a tattoo of him. It’s too late. I want to see the guy who’s got a tattoo of the
[01:04:13] Stephen: carriage.
[01:04:15] Stephen: It would be a cool tattoo,
[01:04:17] Rhys: the carriage. And they may see a horse. Yeah.
[01:04:20] Stephen: But isn’t it also weird how the Phantom carriage is a cool concept. The movie was good, especially for the time, you know, but it didn’t carry into modern day. The way Nosferatu has. You know, Nosferatu had Dracula backing it up, but still, it just, it’s interesting social logically to see what stays and what that was it.
[01:04:42] Stephen: She
[01:04:42] Rhys: thinks my vampire is sexy.
[01:04:45] Stephen: Um, my fandom carried my deaf carriage is country songs for Halloween. That’s right.
[01:04:55] Rhys: Oh, it was just going to say what’s next. And [01:05:00] the next movie, um, I picked because Steve is not a huge fan of major, um, titles for horror movies. Like you don’t like the big house, big budget, horror movies, much.
[01:05:20] Stephen: Not usually.
[01:05:22] Rhys: Um, and people are like, Hey, well, people, there’s not that many American films you’re putting out there. We’re doing mom. Which has, is the star someone Steve’s gonna recognize? I did. It’s uh, I think it’s Columbia. It’s a major movie house, the did it. Um, and it certainly looks like an American made film and we’re going to shatter all of that when we review it, when it comes up next time.
[01:05:55] Rhys: But the
[01:05:55] Stephen: thing is I am major name and bigger production, [01:06:00] but I didn’t remember it. Didn’t recognize it. Uh, you know, those give you some of the best stuff. Oh, absolutely. Yup. That’s next time. Next door. Same time, same bat channel.
[01:06:15] Stephen: we need somebody to do a good voice,
[01:06:17] Rhys: a good outro later. All right. Take it easy.
