Bonus Episode: The Screening Room – Rebel Without a Cause
This week in the Screening Room we’re talking about alienation, chickie runs, knife fights, and how the 1955 film ‘Rebel Without a Cause’ wound up with an X rating in the UK. Plus the mighty Hypothetical Theoretical Metaphorical Potentially Possible Mixtape with songs by The Undertones, the Flamin’ Groovies, Fountains of Wayne, and more. Become an All Access member and get ad-free listening by visiting disgracelandpod.com.
Check out these other great Hollywoodland episodes on the stars of "Rebel Without a Cause:"
Natalie Wood
What is Zeth reading this week?
But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz
Orson Welles, vol. 1: The Road to Xanadu
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Speaker 1: What's going on, good people of Hollywood Land. My name
Speaker 1: is Zeth Lundy, writer, showrunner, and good doctor here at
Speaker 1: Double Elvis, and I'd like to welcome you all to
Speaker 1: another installment of a little thing we like to call
Speaker 1: the Screening Room. This is our weekly episode of the podcast,
Speaker 1: in which I take you on a deep dive into
Speaker 1: one movie that connects with our subject this week. This week,
Speaker 1: the subject of our fully scripted and sound design episode
Speaker 1: from our archive was James Dean, one of Hollywood's many
Speaker 1: tragic figures, but also one of its most unique figures,
Speaker 1: and that there has never been another James Dean. And
Speaker 1: I don't mean that in terms of acting. There are
Speaker 1: plenty of other actors from James Dean's generation that you
Speaker 1: can say are just as good, if not flat out
Speaker 1: better than him. But there has never been another figure
Speaker 1: who has managed to achieve immortality, cinematic popular culture immortality
Speaker 1: in the way that James Dean did. It's improbable you
Speaker 1: cannot replicate it. And I'm not celebrating this fact. It's
Speaker 1: just a fact, a fascinating one at that. But I'm
Speaker 1: getting ahead of myself already, and I'll talk more on
Speaker 1: all this fascinating, improbable, immortal business. Soon enough, James Dean,
Speaker 1: as we all know, made three movies in his lifetime,
Speaker 1: three starring roles, East of Eden, Rebel without a Cause
Speaker 1: and Giant. We could have talked about any of these,
Speaker 1: but the one that is the most hollywood Land and
Speaker 1: Disgraceland coded obviously is Rebel without a Cause. This is
Speaker 1: a nineteen fifty five film directed by Nicholas Ray with
Speaker 1: a script by Stuart Stern and Irving Schulman from a
Speaker 1: story by Nicholas Ray, starring Natalie Wood Salmonio, Jim Backis
Speaker 1: and Dorin Corey Allen, Dennis Hopper and of course James Dean.
Speaker 1: And it all started with a book. Eleven years prior.
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty four, Robert Lindner, PhD. Published a book
Speaker 1: titled Rebel Without a Cause The hypno Analysis of a
Speaker 1: Criminal Psychopath. It was a case study of an inmate
Speaker 1: at Lewisbourg Penitentiary, a federal prison in Pennsylvania. For the
Speaker 1: purposes of the book, the inmate was given the pseudonym Harold. Now.
Speaker 1: Harold's criminal history began at the age of twelve. He
Speaker 1: had a rough childhood and unsteady home life and had
Speaker 1: been nearly blinded by the measles. His anti social behavior
Speaker 1: led first to truancy, vandalism and petty theft, then property crimes,
Speaker 1: break ins and burglaries of homes and businesses, and finally
Speaker 1: to armed robbery and an incident in which he nearly
Speaker 1: killed someone. This was the crime that led to his
Speaker 1: conviction in long term sentencing at Lewisbourg, where he was
Speaker 1: seen by numerous psychologists and psychiatrists, all of whom disagreed
Speaker 1: on what made him the way he was, but who
Speaker 1: could all get behind his quote unquote psychopathic personality. Doctor
Speaker 1: Lindner conducted regular hypnotherapy sessions to get at the core
Speaker 1: of what made Harold the way he was, and part
Speaker 1: of doctor Linder's findings were that Harold was quote a
Speaker 1: rebel without a cause, an agitator without a slogan, a
Speaker 1: revolutionary without a program unquote. He was simply lost, lost
Speaker 1: in his own head, lost in the world we all
Speaker 1: shared with him, And that to a doctor Lindner, or
Speaker 1: to one reading his book in the year nineteen forty four,
Speaker 1: that was the scariest thing of all, That Harold was
Speaker 1: Harold just because Warner brothers bought the rights to doctor
Speaker 1: Linder's book and tried to get a film version made
Speaker 1: of it with Marlon Brando as the lead, but there
Speaker 1: was no script and time passed, and eventually brand O
Speaker 1: pay as well. So Warner Brothers brought the idea to
Speaker 1: director Nicholas Ray, who had just had a hit with
Speaker 1: Johnny Guitar in nineteen fifty four. Nicholas Ray really couldn't
Speaker 1: wrap his head around it. The book was just too clinical.
Speaker 1: There really wasn't an arc of a story there, so
Speaker 1: he passed, but Warner Brothers pushed, and soon Nicholas Ray
Speaker 1: had this idea to take the story of the so
Speaker 1: called rebel and make it not about some like working
Speaker 1: class neglected kid, about a middle class teenagers who came
Speaker 1: from respectable homes. That was a more interesting idea. Now,
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers wanted this to be done fast and cheap.
Speaker 1: They envisioned it as a B movie, as a black
Speaker 1: and white picture. They wanted something they could put up
Speaker 1: against Columbia's The Wild One or MGM's The Blackboard Jungle,
Speaker 1: you know, like their entry into the juvenile delinquent subgenre
Speaker 1: that was all the rage at the time. Warner Brothers
Speaker 1: had lined up actors like Tab Hunter and Robert Wagner,
Speaker 1: but Nicholas Ray was like, Nah, this is going to
Speaker 1: be bigger than all that. This is going to be
Speaker 1: an important film, and I want an important, up and
Speaker 1: coming actor to play the lead role of Jim Stark.
Speaker 1: I want James Dean, this hot new actor who had
Speaker 1: just shot East of Eden with Elia Kazan. Nicholas Ray
Speaker 1: got his way, he got James Dean in that lead role.
Speaker 1: But then James Dean began to get cold feet the
Speaker 1: closer they got to shooting the film. He ghosted Ray.
Speaker 1: He ghosted Warner Brothers. The studio heads, as you would expect,
Speaker 1: were furious. They were furious at James Dean for piecing out.
Speaker 1: They were furious at Nicholas Ray for convincing them to
Speaker 1: hire this untested new actor from New Hollywood who clearly
Speaker 1: was unable to act like a professional. And so Warner
Speaker 1: Brothers took legal action. They had their attorneys drop a lawsuit.
Speaker 1: They were going to charge James Dean with breach of contract,
Speaker 1: sue the pants off of him, while simultaneously searching as
Speaker 1: fast as they could for a replacement. When the last
Speaker 1: possible men it, James Dean resurfaces and he's ready to work. Now,
Speaker 1: was that a method move? Was James Dean giving Nicholas
Speaker 1: Ray and Warner Brothers a taste of Jim Stark before
Speaker 1: the shoot even got going. It's possible, though, I don't
Speaker 1: know if you know, in the mid nineteen fifties that
Speaker 1: the method style of acting have become that sophisticated. Yet,
Speaker 1: Like what I mean by that is there's a lot
Speaker 1: of room on the timeline between James Dean and Marlon
Speaker 1: Brando tapping into their own personal histories and their own
Speaker 1: emotions and their own spontaneity, and then stuff like Daniel
Speaker 1: d Lewis telling everyone to call him Abraham Lincoln on
Speaker 1: the film set for weeks, right, you know what I mean? Now?
Speaker 1: When it came to other major actors in the film,
Speaker 1: Nicholas Ray was also adamant about Natalie Wood. They auditioned
Speaker 1: over thirty actresses and Nicholas Ray said she was the
Speaker 1: only one that could play Judy. Of course, we now
Speaker 1: know that before the cameras even rolled, Nicholas Ray, who
Speaker 1: was forty three at the time, was already having an
Speaker 1: affair with Natalie Wood, who is just sixteen, which is
Speaker 1: just gross, but given Nicholas Ray's history, not shocking. He
Speaker 1: was married four times during his life, all while carrying
Speaker 1: on affairs with everyone from Shelley Winters to Marilyn Monroe
Speaker 1: and Joan Crawford, who was his star in Johnny Guitar
Speaker 1: from the year prior. And there's even a quote attributed
Speaker 1: to Ray in which he describes being in a quote
Speaker 1: tempestuous spiritual marriage unquote to James Dean. During the shoot,
Speaker 1: Natalie Wood was also dating Dennis Hopper at the time,
Speaker 1: who was in this film. He has a minor role,
Speaker 1: no lines. I don't think Dennis Hopper was nineteen at
Speaker 1: the time, so her affair with Ray caused a lot
Speaker 1: of tension between her and Dennis Hopper. My point here
Speaker 1: is that this shoot was like Fleetwood Mac when Lindsey
Speaker 1: and Stevie joined the band, like it was sexually charged
Speaker 1: and twisted up, although it was one hundred percent more
Speaker 1: illegal than Fleetwood Mac. Right, and then you tossed into
Speaker 1: this whole mixed Salmonio another sixteen year old actor, a
Speaker 1: closeted gay teenager working in Hollywood at the time, who
Speaker 1: was playing the role of Plato. The third friend in
Speaker 1: this trio that that included Jim and Judy and Plato
Speaker 1: is a character which Salmonio would later describe as the
Speaker 1: first gay teenager to be depicted in a major Hollywood film.
Speaker 1: His performance was coded, of course, but you can see
Speaker 1: the way that he that Plato looks at Jim, or
Speaker 1: perhaps the way that sal is looking at James Dean.
Speaker 1: You can see how infatuated, how much in love the
Speaker 1: Plato character is with the Jim character, Jim James. And
Speaker 1: what happened with all this Plato Jim business here Salmonio's
Speaker 1: character is that someone from the office of the Hollywood
Speaker 1: Production Code, the Hayes Code, right that kind of kept sexuality,
Speaker 1: tamped down violence, tamped down transgression, tamped down Someone from
Speaker 1: the Hayes CODs sent a letter to Jack Warner which
Speaker 1: in part read quote it is of course vital that
Speaker 1: there be no inference of a questionable or homosexual relationship
Speaker 1: between Plato and Jim unquote. Rebel Out, a cause famously
Speaker 1: opened in October of nineteen fifty five, just one month
Speaker 1: after James Dean died tragically at the age of twenty
Speaker 1: four in a car crash. Both this and his third
Speaker 1: and final film, Giant, were released posthumously, and then both
Speaker 1: of his co stars would later die violently and mysteriously.
Speaker 1: First Salminio in nineteen seventy six, he was attacked and
Speaker 1: stabbed to death near his West Hollywood apartment at the
Speaker 1: age of thirty seven, and then Natalie Wood in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty one, at the age of forty three. Her body
Speaker 1: was found floating in the Pacific off the coast of
Speaker 1: Santa Catalina Island after going missing from her husband, Robert
Speaker 1: Wagner's young the same Robert Wagner, by the way, that
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers originally wanted in Rebel without a Cause. But
Speaker 1: I digress still, the iconography that was born from this
Speaker 1: film is all James Dean, the red jacket, the white
Speaker 1: T shirt, the blue jeans. It's not that it's simply
Speaker 1: emblematic of a bygone Hollywood era. It haunts Hollywood. If
Speaker 1: you hang out in La down on Sunset or Hollywood Boulevard,
Speaker 1: or even up in the valley. Maybe that's even better.
Speaker 1: The valley on Ventura, the ghosts of James Dean, Marilyn Monroe,
Speaker 1: and Elvis Presley are everywhere. They are chochkeys and souvenir shops.
Speaker 1: They are murals on restaurant walls. At least that was
Speaker 1: the vibe years ago when I lived there in the
Speaker 1: early two thousands, and I would suspect it's still the
Speaker 1: same hell even outside La James Dean hangs all mythic
Speaker 1: like over everything. There is not a comp for James Dean.
Speaker 1: He's starting three films, and yes, I know he had
Speaker 1: a handful of minor, minor back ground rolls in some
Speaker 1: films before these, as well as some TV appearances. But
Speaker 1: for all intents and purposes, he made three films for real,
Speaker 1: So three films, all released in the span of a
Speaker 1: year and a half the spring of nineteen fifty five
Speaker 1: to the fall of nineteen fifty six, two of which
Speaker 1: were released after he died. And then this long tail,
Speaker 1: this haunting shadow that looms larger and lasts far longer
Speaker 1: than that one and a half year run at the
Speaker 1: box office. This has not happened before or since. Again,
Speaker 1: there is no comp for James Dean, which means he's
Speaker 1: more than just a pretty face. He's more than just
Speaker 1: a matinee idol or the avatar for the post war
Speaker 1: disenfranchised teenager or the new school of method actors. He
Speaker 1: is an idea, He is an energy. He is something
Speaker 1: you can't grasp with your fingers, something that is impossible
Speaker 1: to interrogate, something that has always been there and always
Speaker 1: will be. And while he's not buried at Hall would forever.
Speaker 1: He is Hollywood forever, as is Rebel Without a Cause.
Speaker 1: This is a film about alienation, about chicky runs and
Speaker 1: knife fights, about curfew violations and Griffith Park. And we're
Speaker 1: gonna get into it right after this. In November nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty five, when Rebel Without a Cause was released in theaters,
Speaker 1: Time magazine had this to say about it. Okay, and
Speaker 1: this is I'm paraphrasing. Here are just this is part
Speaker 1: of the review. This isn't the whole review. Rebel Without
Speaker 1: a Cause is a reasonably serious attempt, within the limits
Speaker 1: of commercial melodrama, to show that juvenile delinquency is not
Speaker 1: just a local out break of tenement terror, but a
Speaker 1: general infection of modern US society. The strong implication of
Speaker 1: this picture is that the real delinquency is not juvenile
Speaker 1: but parental. The point may be obvious and only a
Speaker 1: part of the problem, but it is well worth propounding.
Speaker 1: The best thing about this film, in any case, is
Speaker 1: James Dean, a player of unusual sensitivity and charm. Fifty
Speaker 1: years later, in two thousand and five, Roger Ebert, looking
Speaker 1: back on Rebel Without a Cause for its fiftieth anniversary, wrote,
Speaker 1: this film has not aged well, and Dean's performance seems
Speaker 1: more like marked down Brando than the birth of an
Speaker 1: important talent. But Rebel without a Cause was enormously influential
Speaker 1: at the time, a milestone in the creation of new
Speaker 1: ideas about young people. Marlon Brando as a surly motorcycle
Speaker 1: gang leader and the Wild One in nineteen fifty three,
Speaker 1: James Dean in nineteen fifty five, and the emergence of
Speaker 1: Elvis Presley in nineteen fifty six. These three role models
Speaker 1: decisively altered the way young men could be seen in
Speaker 1: popular culture. They could be more feminine, sexier, more confused,
Speaker 1: more ambiguous, and by the way, even though Roger Ebert
Speaker 1: says this film has not aged well and says that
Speaker 1: James Dean is more like a marked down Brando than
Speaker 1: the birth of an important talent, he still gives this
Speaker 1: movie four stars. And you'll know why in a minute now.
Speaker 1: Roger Ebert leaves out Salmonio in this whole statement here
Speaker 1: about the movie and about the way that young men
Speaker 1: could be seen in popular culture, because Salmonio takes this
Speaker 1: potential perception of men in popular culture one step forward,
Speaker 1: a step that society at large was not ready to
Speaker 1: take quite yet. But the kernel of the idea is there, right.
Speaker 1: It gave permission to move forward, permission to evolve on screen.
Speaker 1: And sure Brando had pulled a similar move the year
Speaker 1: prior and on the waterfront, but this was different. This
Speaker 1: was bold, bright colors and CinemaScope and wide open emotions
Speaker 1: that were like a raw nerve, and it was aimed
Speaker 1: at a younger audience as well. For these reasons, I
Speaker 1: think the film is revolutionary, even if its execution can
Speaker 1: be read as dated or cheesy now in twenty twenty six,
Speaker 1: which if you've watched this film recently you know what
Speaker 1: I mean. Even back in the early two thousands, when
Speaker 1: I lived in la and I saw this play at
Speaker 1: a repertory theater screening with a huge crowd, it did
Speaker 1: not feel as dated to me as it does now now.
Speaker 1: Roger Ebert, in his review comes to a similar conclusion
Speaker 1: as what I've just been talking about. He says, like
Speaker 1: its hero, Rebel without a Cause, desperately wants to say
Speaker 1: something and doesn't know what it is. If it did know,
Speaker 1: it would lose its fascination more perhaps than it realized.
Speaker 1: It is a subversive document of its time. Now. I
Speaker 1: think of that word subversive quite a bit while watching
Speaker 1: Rebel without a Cause. I think audiences audiences thought they
Speaker 1: were getting this portrait of an out of control demon teenager,
Speaker 1: the kind that Time magazine referred to when they talked
Speaker 1: about a general infection of modern US society, right, almost
Speaker 1: like it was this preparation for battle, you know, like
Speaker 1: watch this film so you can be prepared for the
Speaker 1: infectious terror that is the modern teenager, so you can
Speaker 1: be better equipped to handle it. But the subversion is
Speaker 1: in the humanizing of these so called rebels who really
Speaker 1: aren't rebels at all. Honestly. I mean, Jim gets drunk,
Speaker 1: Judy violates curfew, and meanwhile, the greatest rebel of them
Speaker 1: all arguably is Plato, who is brought to the police
Speaker 1: station for killing a litter of puppies, and the actual
Speaker 1: rebellion that is happening. To take a page from Roger
Speaker 1: Ebert's review again is the rebellion against the traditional way
Speaker 1: in which men were portrayed at the movies on TV
Speaker 1: in popular culture at large, but still in nineteen fifty five,
Speaker 1: this was received as a violent piece of cinema in
Speaker 1: many European countries. The restrictions placed upon this did not
Speaker 1: allow children under sixteen or seventeen years old to attend,
Speaker 1: depending on the country, even with an accompanying adult. In
Speaker 1: Sweden and in Finland, some cuts had to be made
Speaker 1: in the film, and even after doing so, you know,
Speaker 1: after those cuts were made, kids still could not go
Speaker 1: see it. The UK demanded that Warner Brothers cut shots
Speaker 1: of kids kicking or punching each other, of car tires
Speaker 1: getting slashed, and a large chunk of the knife fight
Speaker 1: scene as well. They also had to cut a lot
Speaker 1: of the car chase scene or the car race scene
Speaker 1: Buzz's car going off the cliff, as well as the
Speaker 1: scene where Jim attacks his father, and even after doing so,
Speaker 1: the UK slapped it with an X rating. Yes you
Speaker 1: heard that. In nineteen fifty five, Rebeledout a Cause in
Speaker 1: the UK was rated X. A large part of the
Speaker 1: justification by UK authorities was the violence of the teddy
Speaker 1: boys subculture that was going on over there, which had
Speaker 1: already been sort of electrified by The Blackboard Jungle and
Speaker 1: The Wild One, two movies that preceded this. And so
Speaker 1: the game here for the UK censors was that there
Speaker 1: was precedent and they wanted to prevent further real world
Speaker 1: emulation of the so called violent acts in these films.
Speaker 1: And to all this, you gotta think that as much
Speaker 1: as it pissed off Warner Brothers, and as much as
Speaker 1: it pissed off Nicholas Ray, you gotta think that Nicholas Ray,
Speaker 1: for one, he was probably laughing to himself somewhere right
Speaker 1: thinking like, hell, yeah, man, we got this right. This
Speaker 1: is some real ass shit here. In fact, if you
Speaker 1: heard the Rap Party from earlier this week, you heard
Speaker 1: me talking about how Nicholas Ray hired Frank Mazzola, a
Speaker 1: member of a real La street gang called the Athenians,
Speaker 1: to ensure that everything from the staging of the knife
Speaker 1: fight to the selection of the cars and the chicky
Speaker 1: run were absolutely authentic. So to get this reaction from
Speaker 1: other countries, to have all these authentic pieces of the
Speaker 1: film cut out of the film, Yes, I'm sure it
Speaker 1: made Nicholas Ray angry as hell, but it must have
Speaker 1: made him proud at the same time. Now, almost twenty
Speaker 1: years later, in nineteen seventy four, John Cassavettes released A
Speaker 1: Woman under the Influence, a masterpiece starring his wife, Generalalans
Speaker 1: along with Peter Falk, a movie which does not feel
Speaker 1: dated in the same way that Rebel Without a Cause does.
Speaker 1: But I mentioned A Woman under the Influence because it
Speaker 1: gives this nod to Rebel Without a Cause and the
Speaker 1: family dinner scene when General Hollins asks her father to
Speaker 1: stand up for her, it's exactly the same thing that
Speaker 1: James Dean as Jim Stark asks of his father in Rebel. Obviously,
Speaker 1: Cassavettes and his own cinematic subversions was heavily in debt
Speaker 1: to guys like Nicholas Ray, and incidentally, Nicholas Ray's son
Speaker 1: Anthony Ray, starred in Cassavetti's directorial debut Shadows, and then
Speaker 1: twenty years after that, in nineteen ninety five, French director
Speaker 1: Two Kissowitz released his film Lahane, which I've talked a
Speaker 1: bit about in the Rap Party the other day with Jake,
Speaker 1: which to me feels like a lot of the themes
Speaker 1: of rebel being transposed onto this completely different story taking
Speaker 1: place in at the time modern day Paris. These themes
Speaker 1: of displacement of you know, emotional and societal and economic
Speaker 1: displacement giving way to this reactionary violence. So Rebel Without
Speaker 1: a Cause has this long tail, just like James Dean's
Speaker 1: Afterlife had this long tail, continues to have this long tail.
Speaker 1: What Rebel that a Cause does not have is a
Speaker 1: soundtrack full of needle drops like Lahane does. So let's
Speaker 1: rectify that. Let's make a mixtape inspired by the film
Speaker 1: Rebel Without a Cause, shall we. That's up next, guys,
Speaker 1: right after this break. All right, gang, you know what
Speaker 1: time it is. It is time to make a hypothetical, theoretical, metaphorical,
Speaker 1: potentially possible mixtape inspired by the nineteen fifty five Nicholas
Speaker 1: Ray film Rebel Without a Cause. Now I can already
Speaker 1: hear you guys shouting these names out, these song titles.
Speaker 1: There are so many obvious song titles here that we
Speaker 1: could use, or song choices that we could use. Of course,
Speaker 1: there's Rebel Rebel by David Bowie off the Diamond Dogs record.
Speaker 1: There's Rebel Yell by our guy Billy Idol, there's He's
Speaker 1: a Rebel by the Crystals, produced by Notorious Phil Phil Spector.
Speaker 1: These are just, I mean, these are all super obvious
Speaker 1: because of course they have rebel in the title, and
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna select any of them. I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: challenging myself to be more creative and to dig deeper
Speaker 1: than simply rebel yell by Billy Idyl. However, that said caveat,
Speaker 1: My first selection does have rebel in the title, It's
Speaker 1: just not one of those first three or four rebel
Speaker 1: songs that you think of. Okay, My first selection is
Speaker 1: a song called Rebel without a Pause by Public Enemy
Speaker 1: from their sophomore album It Takes a Nation of Millions
Speaker 1: to Hold Us Back, one of the greatest records of
Speaker 1: all time. The album came out in nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: but the single came out in nineteen eighty seven. This
Speaker 1: was the first song they recorded for that album. Now famously,
Speaker 1: Public Enemy was feeling like their debut Yo bum Rush.
Speaker 1: The show was already sounding dated right, and they had
Speaker 1: to up the bpms. They had to up the dense
Speaker 1: production style of samples, and they did so in the
Speaker 1: song with that whistle of a saxophone from a JB's
Speaker 1: track an instrumental JB's track that Whistle, pre dating Doctor
Speaker 1: Dre's Moore Molifluous Whistle that would come a few years later.
Speaker 1: You know, I choose this song fully knowing that Chuck
Speaker 1: D gave zero shits about as Dean at the time.
Speaker 1: He probably still does. You know that that line Elvis
Speaker 1: was a hero to most but never meant shit to me.
Speaker 1: But still I'm including it here on the mixtape because
Speaker 1: it's too good. The song is too good, the track
Speaker 1: is too good, and it fits him well here speaking
Speaker 1: of Public Enemy. By the way, sidebar here. If you
Speaker 1: guys dig, I know you dig. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: don't know why. I'm gonna ask you if you dig
Speaker 1: this because you're listening to my show, so of course
Speaker 1: you do. Check out this recent episode of Questlove's podcast,
Speaker 1: The Quest Love Show. It used to be called Questlove Supreme,
Speaker 1: but he rebranded it recently as The Quest Love Show.
Speaker 1: I think it's just called He has an episode from
Speaker 1: last week, maybe two weeks ago with Chuck D, and
Speaker 1: I'm not kidding when I say it is one of
Speaker 1: the greatest conversations I've heard in a long, long time
Speaker 1: about just about creativity and about being a creative person,
Speaker 1: about the habits of a creative person, about the lessons
Speaker 1: that creative people can sort of pass on to each other.
Speaker 1: Even if you don't know public enemies discography very well
Speaker 1: or you're not into them, it's still a fascinating conversation.
Speaker 1: Chuck d is like one of the most just fascinating
Speaker 1: intelligient dudes out there in the music world and always
Speaker 1: a great conversation. But this one on Quest Love Show
Speaker 1: is just like incredible stuff. Totally check that out, all right,
Speaker 1: Moving on here. Song number two on our mixtape is
Speaker 1: a little song called rock On by David Essex. This
Speaker 1: came out in nineteen seventy three. This is the super
Speaker 1: groovy super Echoe super must be influenced by Curtis Mayfield song, right, Like,
Speaker 1: listen to the song and then listen to Superfly, like
Speaker 1: the album one of the songs from either Freddy's Dead
Speaker 1: or the title track or whatever. It's totally totally riffing
Speaker 1: on that, and it makes total sense because Superfly came
Speaker 1: out like the year before this or whatever. So anyways,
Speaker 1: that's that's my take today on rock On. This song
Speaker 1: has that see you shake on the movie screen, Jimmy
Speaker 1: Dean line, and then the dude's like James Dean right
Speaker 1: alongside some the other lines about blue swede shoes and
Speaker 1: summertime blues. It's got Herbie Flowers rocking that double tracked
Speaker 1: bass guitar, one year after he laid down another monster
Speaker 1: iconic bassline for Lou Reed's Walk on the wild Side.
Speaker 1: My introduction to this song was not through my parents.
Speaker 1: This is probably a song that was played to death
Speaker 1: when I was in high school. My dad was not
Speaker 1: into listening to stuff that came out when he was younger,
Speaker 1: because like especially popular stuff, because it had been so
Speaker 1: overplayed on the radio, he was sick of it. This
Speaker 1: strikes me as one of those songs probably that he
Speaker 1: was sick of. So my intro to this came not
Speaker 1: from my parents or even from I don't remember hearing
Speaker 1: this on classic rock radio, but it came from Ram
Speaker 1: of all people, because their song Drive, which kicks off
Speaker 1: one of their greatest albums, Automatic for the People, definitely
Speaker 1: their greatest album name Drive, is like a low key
Speaker 1: shout out to this song rock on. I think Michael
Speaker 1: Stipe is a huge fan of this song. If you
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm talking about, check out Arim's drive
Speaker 1: and then check out David Essex rock On and see
Speaker 1: what I'm saying there. I think I must have read
Speaker 1: that in a review or something somewhere where someone says
Speaker 1: that Arim is basically like paying homage to David Essex here,
Speaker 1: because you know, this was years before you could just
Speaker 1: go online and search up rock on David Essex and
Speaker 1: check it out. So I kind of carried that little
Speaker 1: tidbit around in my head for years and years and
Speaker 1: years until I finally heard rock On and I was like,
Speaker 1: oh damn, these guys Arim, they have good taste. Okay,
Speaker 1: next song here on our mixtape Blue Jeans. This is
Speaker 1: by Lana del Rey from her second album Born to Die,
Speaker 1: came out in twenty twelve. Has the line walked into
Speaker 1: the room, you know you made my eyes burn. It
Speaker 1: was like James Dean for sure, melancholic, melodramatic, just like
Speaker 1: this movie is only unlike the movie, this has some
Speaker 1: killer surf guitar shit going on. You know, I was guilty,
Speaker 1: like many others, of just completely dismissing Lonna del Ray
Speaker 1: when she blew up. She had that S and L
Speaker 1: performance that was roundly criticized. I've since a toned for
Speaker 1: my sins and I love Lonna del Ray's music now.
Speaker 1: And as Jake so succinctly pointed out in our Lona
Speaker 1: del Ray episode over in the Disgraceland feed that we
Speaker 1: just ran in the rewind slot last weekend, I think
Speaker 1: you know that's a product of near sightedness or narrow mindedness,
Speaker 1: which you know, I'm only human. It happens. But Jake
Speaker 1: says something in the episode, like, you know, Lona del
Speaker 1: Ray doesn't fit into anyone's vision of what a female
Speaker 1: pop singer should be. She creates her own playbook, and
Speaker 1: that type of artist has always been hard for simple
Speaker 1: minded critics to understand. Now look, old habits die hard.
Speaker 1: I was once a simple minded critic myself. I was
Speaker 1: in my twenties. No less, which is that's doubly painful. Okay,
Speaker 1: some of the shit I wrote in my twenties, some
Speaker 1: of the opinions I had, Guys, I don't want to
Speaker 1: go back. So I mean, listen, we grow, we get better,
Speaker 1: we move on. We listened to Lanadel Ray. Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: next song here in our mixtape is a song by
Speaker 1: the Undertones called Teenage Kicks. The Undertones were this Irish band.
Speaker 1: People call them a punk band, but I don't know
Speaker 1: they kind of sound. I guess it's kind of like
Speaker 1: Ramon's kind of punk, or it just sounds like speed
Speaker 1: up rock and roll to me, you know. This was
Speaker 1: released as a single in nineteen seventy eight, though it
Speaker 1: was not included on their debut album from the following year.
Speaker 1: Teenage Kicks was a song that was so good that
Speaker 1: legendary British DJ John Peel had one of its lyrics
Speaker 1: included on his headstone when he passed away. I shit
Speaker 1: you not now. I used to get this song Teenage
Speaker 1: Kicks confused with another song called teenage Head by Flaming Groovies,
Speaker 1: and because of this, let's include teenage Head on our
Speaker 1: mixtape as well. Okay, teenage Head Flaming Groovies. This is
Speaker 1: from their netnineteen seventy one album I Believe of the
Speaker 1: same name, San Francisco band doing some like low down
Speaker 1: blues rock here. This song has this incredible like iggy
Speaker 1: pop esque line I'm a child of Adam Baum's and
Speaker 1: rotten Air in Vietnam I Am You, which is fucking incredible.
Speaker 1: This is the Flaming Groovies like Stones record, whereas their
Speaker 1: next album Shakes Some Action is more of their Beatles
Speaker 1: record like A Hard Day's Night Beatles for Sale era Beatles.
Speaker 1: Both records rule, but for our mixtape we're using Teenage
Speaker 1: Head from nineteen seventy one. All right, next song, here
Speaker 1: We're Gonna Use is. I love this song the song
Speaker 1: called just Stay with Me here follow my break grum
Speaker 1: Trail Here Laser show by Fountains of Wayne from Utopia Parkway,
Speaker 1: their nineteen ninety nine album. This may have been my
Speaker 1: favorite album of that year. This is pre Stacy's Mom
Speaker 1: Fountains of Wayne and post Radiation Vibe Fountains of Wayne.
Speaker 1: This is like the definition of if someone if an
Speaker 1: alien land and was like, play me the perfect power
Speaker 1: pop record, this would be at the top of my list.
Speaker 1: Incredible songwriting at the same time funny and moving. This
Speaker 1: song more on the former than the latter. This is
Speaker 1: a song about the thrill of going to the Hayden
Speaker 1: Planetarium in New York to watch a Metallica laser show.
Speaker 1: And I thought of this song because of the major
Speaker 1: role that the Griffith Park observatory plays in this film,
Speaker 1: and there's a planetarium in that venue. And listen, I
Speaker 1: know that James Dan in nineteen fifty five wasn't smoking
Speaker 1: a jay and going in spacing onto Metallica in the
Speaker 1: Griffith Park Observatory. But I would assume that one could
Speaker 1: do that now or at some point, so you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. That's just the connection my brain made,
Speaker 1: and that's what's happening. Speaking of Fountains of Wayne and
Speaker 1: Stacy's Mom, I'm going to embarrass Double Elvis's Matt Boden here,
Speaker 1: but did you guys know little known facts? Not a
Speaker 1: little known fact. Maybe it just it's a in my house.
Speaker 1: We all know this fact. Matt Bowden was the engineer
Speaker 1: on Stacy's Mom. He actually engineered that entire Fountains of
Speaker 1: Wayne record, Welcome Interstate Managers, incredible record. Stacy's Mom sounds incredible.
Speaker 1: And a big reason for it why it sounds incredible
Speaker 1: is our guy, Matt. All Right, man, big ups to you. Man.
Speaker 1: There you go, guys, some songs to get this hypothetical, theoretical,
Speaker 1: metaphorically potentially possible mixtape started. I just butchered the title
Speaker 1: of my own mixtape section here. Let me know if
Speaker 1: you got any additions for this one. Songs about alienation,
Speaker 1: maybe songs about you know, racing a car next to
Speaker 1: somebody else and the other car goes off a cliff
Speaker 1: about getting in a knife fight up on the hill
Speaker 1: overlooking Los Angeles. Hit me up and let me know. Guys.
Speaker 1: You can get at me on the telephone six one
Speaker 1: seven nine oh six six six three eight. You can
Speaker 1: leave me a voicemail. You can send me a text.
Speaker 1: You can also send me an email at Disgrace lampod
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. And while you're doing that, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna pause real quick, but stay put. I will be
Speaker 1: right back. Okay, my Hollywood lamb peeps. I hope you
Speaker 1: dug that dive into rebel without a cause. I mentioned
Speaker 1: here during this episode Natalie Wood, I mentioned Dennis Hopper,
Speaker 1: and I mentioned sal Mineo. Don't forget we have episodes
Speaker 1: from the archive on all three of those actors. Maybe
Speaker 1: Matt can throw some links in the show notes if
Speaker 1: you want to listen some more to these stories there.
Speaker 1: The Dennis Opper story is wild and feral, that Natalie
Speaker 1: Wood is tragic and mysterious, and the Salmonia One is
Speaker 1: just downright tragic, the kinds of stories you've come to
Speaker 1: expect from Hollywood Land. And speaking of Hollywood stories, I've
Speaker 1: just started reading this large tone by Simon Callo about
Speaker 1: Orson Wells. It's called Orson Wells Volume One, The Road
Speaker 1: to Xanadu. This is a five hundred plus page biography
Speaker 1: about Orson Wells that goes from his birth all the
Speaker 1: way up to the release of Citizen Kane. So like
Speaker 1: only the last third or maybe even the last fourth
Speaker 1: of the book is about shooting and releasing Citizen Kane.
Speaker 1: There are two other volumes that Simon Callo wrote on
Speaker 1: Orson Wells. Now I know a bit about Citizen Kane.
Speaker 1: There was an incredible documentary about the making of the
Speaker 1: movie that came out years ago. I read a bunch
Speaker 1: about it. I've seen David Fincher's mank which is about
Speaker 1: herman Mankowitz and his involvement in writing the screenplay. And
Speaker 1: I know the major bullet points of Orson Wells's early
Speaker 1: creative life before he made this movie. You know, the
Speaker 1: War of the World's radio broadcast, his legendary production of
Speaker 1: Macbeth with an all African American cast that became known
Speaker 1: as Voodoo Macbeth. But for every tiny hill of info
Speaker 1: I have on Orson Wells, there's an entire mountain that
Speaker 1: remains unknown to me. I'm super psyched to dig into
Speaker 1: this book and will definitely come out on the other
Speaker 1: side with some new Hollywood Land content. You just wait now.
Speaker 1: I'm reading this after reading very very quickly a book
Speaker 1: by Jeff Dyer called but Beautiful, a book about jazz.
Speaker 1: This is one of the most incredible books I've ever read.
Speaker 1: Full stop. The writing is inspiring. This is for a writer.
Speaker 1: This is the kind of book you read and every
Speaker 1: page I would read, I would just be inspired to
Speaker 1: write something. It's so evocative, so illuminating, such a way
Speaker 1: to look at the world. Somebody recommended this book to
Speaker 1: me a while back. I can't remember who it was.
Speaker 1: It was a disco I think, somebody, but I just
Speaker 1: now got around to it. It's like the jazz version
Speaker 1: of Nick Tosh's Hellfire book about Jerry Lee Lewis. It
Speaker 1: follows Duke Ellington, Lester Young, Felonious Monk, Charles Mingus Chet Baker,
Speaker 1: and some others. Each section is a story about one
Speaker 1: of these cats, and it's a very disgraced Land Hall
Speaker 1: Woodland coded look at the jazz world in the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: But again, the language of this book, Jeff Dyer's, you know,
Speaker 1: playing this thing like monk playing his piano. It's an
Speaker 1: amazing little book. Just it's really short. It's under two
Speaker 1: hundred pages. It's a really quick read. And if you're
Speaker 1: like me and you like music and you like words,
Speaker 1: let me come on. It's a no brainer. This is
Speaker 1: up your ally, right, that's called but Beautiful, a book
Speaker 1: about jazz. And then the Orson Wells book I'm just
Speaker 1: started is Orson Wells Volume one, The Road to Xanadu.
Speaker 1: All right, Crystal Ball time here, guys, coming up Monday.
Speaker 1: Here in the feed, we've got our episode from the
Speaker 1: archive on Gianni Versace. VERSACEI was assassinated on July fifteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety seven, so next week marks the twenty ninth
Speaker 1: anniversary of that. This is an all timer Hollywood Land episode.
Speaker 1: By the way, I think I said that last week too,
Speaker 1: but you know, sue me both. I was. I was
Speaker 1: right last week and I'm right this week. This episode
Speaker 1: totally cooks. Do not miss this episode on Gianni Versace.
Speaker 1: Even if you're like, man, I don't really don't care
Speaker 1: about fashion, there's so much Hollywood tie into this story,
Speaker 1: and the story in general is just is bonkers. Anyways,
Speaker 1: you're gonna want to check that out. And then on Wednesday,
Speaker 1: in the Rap Party with Versace on the Brain, our
Speaker 1: question of the week is gonna be this, what fashion
Speaker 1: style did you steal from a movie? Like? What look
Speaker 1: were you rocking back in high school or in college
Speaker 1: or hell last week? Man, all because of what someone
Speaker 1: wore in a movie, Hit me up and let me
Speaker 1: know six one seven nine oh six six six three eight.
Speaker 1: You can email me at disgracelampod at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: You can hit me up on Patreon if you're a
Speaker 1: member of disgracelan All Access, hit me up in the chat.
Speaker 1: However you do it, perhaps your response will get played
Speaker 1: or read in the Rap Party next week. Now. Speaking
Speaker 1: of Patreon, disgracelan All Access, that's where we are our
Speaker 1: video podcast. This film should be played loud Lives. You
Speaker 1: can only get it there on Patreon as a member
Speaker 1: of a disgrace and All Access. We just dropped our
Speaker 1: latest episode on Days to Confuse, like what a couple
Speaker 1: of weeks ago, and we put the question out to
Speaker 1: all y'all in the All Access chat. We wanted to
Speaker 1: know what we should do next for July. We wanted
Speaker 1: a great summer movie. We were thinking about do the
Speaker 1: Right Thing, but you know, there are other options out there,
Speaker 1: and so we put it out to you guys, and
Speaker 1: the consensus, by a wide margin, was do the Right
Speaker 1: Thing Spike Lee's nineteen eighty nine classic. So Jake and
Speaker 1: I are going to jump in the booth and record
Speaker 1: that one soon. Cannot wait to do it. Super formative
Speaker 1: music movie in my life, and I know in Jake's
Speaker 1: as well, and I know for a lot of you too,
Speaker 1: this is a super formative movie for a lot of us.
Speaker 1: So be on the lookout for that. Okay, Now, I'm
Speaker 1: going to leave you guys here with this. All right,
Speaker 1: Here's what America was watching at the movies in the
Speaker 1: year nineteen fifty five, the year that James Dean died
Speaker 1: at the age of twenty four. Number one Cinerama Holiday,
Speaker 1: directed by Robert Albendick and Philippe de Lacy. Number two
Speaker 1: Mister Roberts directed by John Ford and Merving Lee Roy.
Speaker 1: Number Number three Jackson Battle Crop by Fred Numbers, directed
Speaker 1: by Raoul Walsh directed number four Oklahoma at the Number
Speaker 1: Joseph directed by Fred Zinnemanger. Number number five Lady and
Speaker 1: the Guys and Dolls directed by Joseph Mancowitz directed Number
Speaker 1: six Lady in the Trams directed by Antos five d
Speaker 1: Quit talking and start mixing.