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Season 17’s halfway to the finish line, and the TGTPTU boys are back from break revving their engines, ready for the next four in their “hack” director line-up. Jack’s pick coming in third is Ron Howard, starting with his first film in the big chair, the “smash-‘em-up” smash success (for a Roger Corman feature) GRAND THEFT AUTO (1977).

Howard’s only feature to co-write or to co-star in as director, the then-Happy Days star cut his teeth on GTA (no relation to the videogame) coming off the success as leading man-boy in the preceding Corman car chase flick Eat My Dust (1976). As part of Howard’s deal with Corman, the success of EMD put the boy who once played Opie Taylor in TV’s The Andy Griffith’s Show in charge of first and second units, stunt coordinators, helicopters, and his kin/fellow actors brother Clint Howard and father Rance Howard—all this on the day after Ron’s 23rd birthday.

GTA’s plot follows young elopers played by Howard and Nacy Morgan (who might be best known as John Ritter’s first wife), who’ve stolen Morgan’s father’s Rolls-Royce to avoid the pressure of her pseudo-arranged marriage to a rich dweeb. This theft leads Morgan’s father, a prominent citizen about to run for major office, to have his security detail retrieve his car (and daughter). Morgan’s jilted dweeb upon learning he’s not to be betrothed assumes she’s been kidnapped and calls a local radio station to put a bounty on her safe return before stealing a car to give chase himself, causing his wealthy mother to call the same station to offer a separate bounty for her son’s safe return. From there, cars go crash, clang, boom, and pow.

Start peeling off your lead paint and start snacking on its sweet goodness to revel in this 70’s film concept of comedy during what the hosts generally agree is a second-screener.

This ep, Ryan turns his head cold to his advantage as a radio announcer; Jack reveals this and Solo (2018) are the only Howard movies he’s seen prior; and Thomas and Ken recommend (re)listening to the Any Which Way You Can episode and dunk hard on regular Howard collaborating producer Brian Grazer’s hair.

CORRECTION: Jonathan Demme’s film for Roger Corman wasn’t Handle with Care (nor was it Woody Allen’s Radio Days) but Caged Heat (followed by Crazy Momma) when Demme was giving Howard some Corman-related advice.

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Season 17’s second four from a hack director concludes this week with the final film by Edward Dmytryk under discussion, a color saddles-and-stirrups flick WARLOCK (1959).

Arguably a better title of ≪L'Homme aux colts d'or≫ in its French-language release, Warlock as a two-hander Western covers the entry into the unincorporated community of Warlock by Henry Fonda’s Clay Blaisedell, a legendary gunslinger who owns a pair of golden six-shooters and, separately, the evolution of Richard Widmark’s Johnny Gannon from reluctant outlaw cowpuncher to sheriff of Warlock whose prominent citizens earlier lacking a sheriff had contracted Blaisedell to clean up. Homoerotic tensions arise between Blaisedell and Anthony Quinn’s Tom Morgan when Blaisedell decides to pursue romance with a significantly younger woman in lieu of their money-making vigilante partnering ways. Sheriff Gannon’s character also finds a love interest as the movie builds toward <> its final act, a post-shootout shootout between Blaisedell and Gannon with no Morgan to watch the former’s back. And no plot summary would be complete without mention of Star Trek TOS’s very own DeForest Kelley as “Curley” Burne, a member of Gannon’s former gang with some magnetism remaining in the character’s moral compass.

This week, Thomas expands on a list of movies whose misleading titles lead to disappointment; Ken expresses he’s not fonda Fonda in this film; and Ryan soft-shoes the homoerotic tension.

We’re taking a week off before shifting gears and entering the demolition derby that will be our next four in the 4x4 starting with Ron Howard’s debut film Grand Theft Auto.

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It’s calm seas and second helpings of strawberries this week as the TGTPTU boys cover their third of four curated Edward Dmytryk films, the multiple Oscar-nominated picture THE CAINE MUTINY (1954).

Saving its then “issues” producer (and subsequent to this movie an issues director) Stanley Kramer’s bacon, Dmytryk delivered a bona fide hit picture adapting the already popular book by Herman Wouk about a fictional mutiny during WWII among American seaman upon the titular Caine. Deviating from the Broadway courtroom play starring Henry Fonda (who’ll show up in next week’s Dmytryk film), the movie hews closer to the novel depicting on screen and in glorious Technicolor events aboard the ship leading to the mutiny, leaving the theatrical adaptation’s courtroom drama for the third act. The movie would also add Yosemite National Park as a romantic getaway between its Ivy League, very mid, blonde protagonist and POV character Ensign Willie Keith played by a now relatively unknown Robert Francis who died tragically at age 25 after a plane crash and his character’s fiancée May Wynn played by May Wynn who changed her stage name to that of her character on the recommendation of Kramer. And for more on the plot, there’s IMDB, Wikipedia, and further resources on the World Wide Web if you don’t have a great-grandpa around to ask.

The film would have seven Academy Awards nominations and no wins, with Bogart losing out to Brando (and Kramer to Spiegel) for On the Waterfront.

This episode Ken and his metaphor get sweaty towards the ep’s end; Ryan reveals the thuggish life of Joan Didion; and Gen Z’ers Jack and Thomas settle the TGTPTU style guide dispute over how to pronounce “gif.”

And now for an important announcement:

Despite what your lying ears have heard, there has never been a recorded mutiny on TGTPTU. The truths of each episode lie not in their incidents, but in the way these three hosts in the battle for the Pacific Northwest meet the crisis of their lives. Now sound the Star Trek Original Series whistle, we’re coming onboard.

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Mirage

Season 17’s Hacks continues with MIRAGE (1965), the latest selection from Edward Dmytryk’s filmography curated by cohost Ryan phoning in from Arizona for his second of four flicks picked in this season’s 4x4. And another black-and-white noirish mystery loosely adapting a novel.

Dmytryk’s reworking of the uncredited print material (the 1952 novel Fallen Angel) created a film that exploits the conventions of the genre to obscure the film’s conceit and twist reveal, which is <> that the protagonist David Stillwell played by Gregory Peck has amnesia of the non-explosive kind (clarification for Matt Groening fans, yes, we see you Portland, Oregon whose citizens named their streets after Simpsons characters; Vancouver, WA, putting you on blast: when are you going to get onboard and do the same for your streets using Futurama characters?) and where were we? This amnesia seems to set yours falsely back two years, or was it two days, like this protagonist Stillwell who thinks he’s a cost accountant and meets Sheela played by Diane Baker on a stairwell that descends more stories than the building physically has. But with our introduction in media res to Stillwell proverbially and literally in the dark after power loss at the high rise that leads to this stairwell descent, the audience is set up for misdirection. Add in what seem cutaway scenes that might actually be flashbacks and vice versa, and the art of editing and our movie literacy actually impedes, as intended, our understanding the events of the film. Yet with the help of a scene-stealing Walter Matthau as novice private eye Ted Caselle and later a psychologist and throughout with Kevin McCarthy who plays Stillwell’s coworker Josephson in the employ of mysterious and powerful character The Major, Stillwell is able to piece together the puzzle of his missing and nonchronological memories. Using his cunning intelligence during the standoff at the film’s climax, Stillwell forces Josephson to make a moral decision, and the stakes couldn’t be higher: The Major wants to make nuclear war clean, i.e., make the use of atomic weapons feasible for the U.S. military, and Stillwell—not a cost account—has the equations to make it so. <>

Non-spoiling: The editing in this film is amazeballs. And its jazz-inspired score is by Quincy Jones.

This week, experience relative deprivation as Peck’s car purchase for his screenwriter has Ken disappointed in Spielberg’s gifting as discussed back in Season 6; Ryan covers the second half of Dmytryk’s life and career during and post-HUAC; Jack takes another bye week; and Thomas dives back into his recent 70’s disaster film watches to provide unrelated information. Also, Ken has a surprise that might presage a pattern for hosts and films this 4x4 season.

To borrow from the Futurama episode “Bender Should Not Be Allowed on Television”:

“When I grow up, I’m gonna have so much amnesia!”

“Me too. I mean, I have it now, but I forgot.”

This episode is dedicated to The Greater Good. May your best days be before you still.

Now where was I? Seems like I was just on SE Fry St where it intersects with Bender Blvd.

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TGTPTU goes Old Hollywood this week with Ryan’s pick for his Season 17’s Hacks 4x4 director: Edward Dmytryk.

As we learn this ep, the former Canadian, former movie editor, former son (California courts would emancipate him from an alcoholic father) Dmytryk would rise through the studio system starting off as a messenger in his teens to become a talkies director by age 31. At age 36, he’d dust off old studio rights to a previously adapted Raymond Chandler novel Farewell, My Lovely to make the first and earliest of the four films we’ll be covering this season: MURDER, MY SWEET (1944).

Normally, we’d summarize a bit of the film in this paragraph. A typical cakewalk for yours truly, the task is not so simple this week. Despite various changes in plot (yet in keeping to the spirit of the book), the film’s casual, causal sequences of events and coincidences make little sense. In brief and in the famed detective’s first time appearing as named in film, Philip Marlowe is hired to do one thing, then another; the second thing is related to the first in a reveal at the end of the movie’s extended flashback. Notably, this structure of a bookend opening with the protagonist telling it as it was would become a staple in the noir genre.

This week, Ken does extra research weighing in on Gay Lawrence adaptation; Jack reveals the perfect way to watch the movie while reading its Chandler source material; Thomas wonders if all Canadian directors know each other; and Ryan contributes remotely. Subsequently, tinny microphone subs in for fan fav squeaky chair who is on hiatus for this pincered pairing.

WARNING: Episode contains hot takes on Reese’s peanut butter cups.

BEHIND THE PAYWALL: Unprofessional tax advice for the 2025 Tax Year followed by a breezy seventy-nine-minute primer explaining baseball followed by a lengthier discussion for our platinum tier members.

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THE BODYGUARD

TGTPTU’s first set of four Hack 4x4s concludes this week with THE BODYGUARD (1992), director Mick Jackson’s sleeper hit starring peak Kevin Costner and top shelf Whitney Houston.

Allegedly offered to Jackson the day after the L.A. Story premiere, the plot of The Bodyguard is bigger than you remember or would expect, so if you haven’t seen it or not in a while, do so. Just know the script started with JFK’s assassination as a Steve McQueen + Diana Ross vehicle and, after 67 rejections over 2 years, went through 12 rewrites by Lawrence Kasdan until it landed with Kostner who wanted Whitney Houston and Kasdan wanted out of directing. Hence, Jackson steps in as premium hack. It would become the second highest grossing film of 1992.

This ep, Jack stays scarce, Andi returns bringing Dolly Pardon facts, Ken reminds us Costner would later direct The Postman, Ryan flexes his family’s wealth, and Gen Z Thomas reveals a dark secret of how unamerican (or age-appropriate) his cartoon movie habits are having not seen a single Peanuts movie (NOTE: content may be edited or become exclusive behind the paywall) or 1999’s Oscar-sweeping American Beauty.

Mick Jackson, if we should stay, we’d only be in your way. So we’ll go, but you know, we’ll think of you every step of the way…

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Season 17’s Hack 4x4 continues as predictable as the weather in the City of Angels (no relationship to the previously covered film, and host Ken’s favorite motion picture remake, see S4,E4 for more on the Nicholas Cage movie with this sobriquet for a title) with this week’s third entry in the Mick Jackon canon: L.A. STORY (1991).

Written by and starring Steve Martin at the arguable pinnacle of his comedic film stardom (Father of the Bride would be released the same year), L.A. Story is the flick that immigrated Jackson to the States after Martin had seen Jackson’s acclaimed British dramatic television series subsequent to the success of Threads (S17,E1). Jackson, who had no background in nor ever directed a comedy, initially declined the offer, believing the script too good and having too little knowledge of Los Angeles (and likely the SoCal, California, U.S., & North America regions). Yet Martin and his producer believed Jackson’s latter objection an asset; he’d have an outsider’s perspective on what’s been described as a satirical love-letter to the eccentricities of L.A.

The comedy follows Martin in the role of a wacky bachelor weatherman in a zany Los Angeles full of neon and plastic surgery, and this was the extent of the movie that Thomas (who picked the director and his four for the 4x4) knew prior to this, his first watch. Between its mixture of Zucker Brothers’ and Mel Brooks’s absurdist and sight gag humor with the occasional Groucho Marx-level clever wordplay is a love story between Martin’s weatherman (((“meteorologist”))) and Victoria Tennant’s first-time visiting L.A. British reporter (((“journalist”))) as Martin shows Tennant’s character around L.A., guided by a sentient variable message highway traffic sign (((“WHAT I REALLY WANT TO DO IS DIRECT”))). As this romantic comedy proceeds with Shakespeare references, including an appearance of the sexiest man to ever grace the screen Rick Moranis as a Hamlet-esque gravedigger, but also a rapping waiter, Martin roller-skating through art museums, and a very bouncy Sarah Jessica Parker as SanDeE* (((“Big s, small a, small n, big d, small e, big e, and there’s a little star at the end.”))), Martin’s and Tennant’s characters learn no easy lessons or manifest grand revelations. Rather than have their characters evolve and develop and expiate, the movie has instead adults fairly realistically portrayed with Richard E. Grant as Tennant’s ex-husband wanting to rekindle the flame and a casual take on monogamy.

This episode, no Jack, but guest Andi drops in to mix up her Micks, Thomas his Sarahs, and Ryan his quotes from next episode’s The Bodyguard. Meanwhile Ken quietly reflects on the last Thanksgiving he spent with his cohosts and Kevin Spacey reenters the chat. Before the end of the ep, Ryan and Andi harmonize on a 90s rap classic on their way to a Mick Jackson theme song. Fans of the pod will learn Andi likes a break in them, Thomas isn’t big on this comedy, Ken surprised its comedy’s not cringe, and Ryan’s people once migrated in the summers to L.A. to rollerblade.

That sounds good. We’ll also have a twist of lemon.

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VOLCANO

Expatriated British director Mick Jackson erupts on screen and sets Los Angeles on fire with his latest (to be covered in Season 17 Hacks) blockbuster film VOLCANO (1997).

Suffering from a release date only weeks after another volcano disaster movie hit American movie theaters (Dante’s Peak), Jackson’s big-budget disaster movie flips the script on Threads (covered last week) with competency porn performed by seasoned actors at or some nearing the pinnacle of their career, including Tommy Lee Jones and Anne Heche and Keith David, as well as up-and-coming stars and character actors, most notably Don Cheadle, in this ensemble film reminiscent of the 70s disaster flicks.

The primary focus is Jones’ Mike Roark, a divorced workaholic dad saddled at the start of the movie with a vacation and a tween daughter who, by the end of the film, will be unburdened by both when lava erupts and flows the streets of L.A. This surprising disaster leads Jone’s Roark as the head of the city’s Office of Emergency Management along with his number one Cheadle as the bureau’s assistant director and someone named Gator who likely works with them and might have teleportation abilities to team up with the egghead and infrequent glasses-wearing Heche character to divert the lava flow into the ocean with the help of a second-act David as a police lieutenant and a racist 90’s LAPD cop (not redundant in this film’s world), the LAPD’s demolition team, and a self-proclaimed “volcano version of Rodney King” (and no help from the White kid named Tommy). In the process, the city solves racism.

This week, Jack’s away. Thomas provides alternative tag lines for the film; Ken uncovers information on the 86’ed sequel; and Ryan’s left to speculate.

Spoiler:

We love it!

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