The Paul Newman Hall of Fame

Sean and Amanda briefly tease next week’s mailbag episode and react to the Golden Globes adding a new category for Best Podcast (1:34). Then, they dive into their long-awaited Paul Newman episode, where they unpack who Newman was as a person (7:06), explore what made him such a special actor (16:13), and build his Hall of Fame by selecting the 10 most essential performances of his career (43:47). Hosts: Sean Fennessey and Amanda Dobbins Producer: Jack Sanders Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Welcome to the brand new Zach Lowe Show. That's right, I'm back to have the same in-depth NBA conversations you're used to. We're going to talk about the games, the X's and O's, the drama. The playoffs are coming up and now you get to see every episode in full on video on Spotify and on my own YouTube channel. Episodes drop every Monday and Thursday with a collection of guests you're going to love. So make sure you follow and subscribe to the brand new Zach Lowe Show on Spotify or wherever you watch or listen to your podcasts. Let's go.

• 0:35Sean Fennessey?

  This episode is brought to you by the Autograph Journey Credit Card from Wells Fargo. The Autograph Journey Credit Card from Wells Fargo is built for travel. You can earn rewards wherever you book, your favorite hotel site, your go-to airline, and more. You get five times points with hotels, four times with airlines, three times on restaurants, and other travel, and one point on other purchases. Whether it's a big vacation or a quick getaway, from booking your stay to that first meal when you arrive, you're turning your trips into rewards with the Autograph Journey Credit Card from Wells Fargo. Learn more at wellsfargo.com/autographjourney. Terms apply.

• 1:07Speaker 02

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• 2:17Sean Fennessey?

  I'm Sean Fennessey.

• 2:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm Amanda Dobbins.

• 2:19Sean Fennessey?

  And this is the Big Picture Right Conversation show about Paul Newman. It's finally here to celebrate what would have been his 100th birthday. This year in 2025, we are talking about Paul Newman, a magical movie star, a favorite of this show, someone that we've never dedicated an entire episode to. Very excited to build his Hall of Fame with you, Amanda. We have spent days, weeks, months, rewatching and watching for the first time his vast filmography. Do you feel ready for this experience?

• 2:46Amanda Dobbins?

  As ready as I'm gonna be.

• 2:47Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 2:48Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, like, I've really been, there was a moment last week where I was like, maybe I can never watch a Paul Newman film again, and maybe I hate him. And that's, I've, I've come back around.

• 2:57Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, that's good.

• 2:58Amanda Dobbins?

  This was, you know, we went to the deep immersion and we came back, but it was like, it's, it's time to do this, you know?

• 3:04Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. It is almost time to do it until these very brief announcements. First of all, we are doing a Mailbag episode next week.

• 3:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 3:11Sean Fennessey?

  So if you have questions, we have an email address you can send those questions to. Bob Wagner will be back to be scouting those questions for us. Looking forward to hearing about-

• 3:20Amanda Dobbins?

  What is the email address?

• 3:22Sean Fennessey?

  It's, uh, it's [email protected].

• 3:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Chris has this down so great on the watch, like, his, you know, his, like, news and notes.

• 3:30Sean Fennessey?

  Jack, what's the email address?

• 3:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Do we know?

• 3:31Sean Fennessey?

  Come on, help us out.

• 3:32Speaker 00

  Big Pick Mailbag at gmail.com.

• 3:35Sean Fennessey?

  Big Pick Mailbag at gmail.com. Send us your questions if you want to know about movies this year, if you want to know about movies from the past, if you want to know about the awards race, if you want to know about any old thing. More about Minecraft?

• 3:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 3:46Sean Fennessey?

  Should we force Amanda to see Minecraft?

• 3:49Amanda Dobbins?

  I just, I don't, I can't do it this weekend. It's a pretty, like, three birthday parties, but maybe, like, next weekend, sure.

• 3:56Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, maybe next weekend.

• 3:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, while you're gone, while everyone else does it can, while you're golfing, I can go see Minecraft.

• 4:01Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, I'm gonna mark that down in my brain. News.

• 4:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 4:05Sean Fennessey?

  Did get some news yesterday. I certainly heard from a lot of people about this news. What was the news?

• 4:10Amanda Dobbins?

  The news is that we are going to be accepting the first Golden Globe for podcasts next year at the Golden Globes.

• 4:16Sean Fennessey?

  Very exciting.

• 4:17Amanda Dobbins?

  It's right. Yeah. So they're introducing a podcast category. To be honest, I put this in the outline and realized I didn't actually click through on any of the headlines. So I know none of the details. Do you?

• 4:25Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, just that they have identified a top 25 podcasts in some way.

• 4:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 4:30Sean Fennessey?

  We don't know what the metrics are. Could it be downloads? Could it be reviews? Could it be vibes? I don't know. But they're going to identify 25 podcasts and then members of the organization that votes on the Golden Globes, which was once the Hollywood Foreign Press and now is something else.

• 4:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 4:44Sean Fennessey?

  Will determine the best podcast. So it's going to be, uh, it's going to be Smartless.

• 4:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 4:49Sean Fennessey?

  It's going to be, uh, Amy Poehler. It's going to be, um, Dax Shepard.

• 4:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 4:56Sean Fennessey?

  It's going to be Joe Rogan and it's going to be me and you.

• 4:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, great.

• 4:59Sean Fennessey?

  What do you think our chances are?

• 5:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Really excited to meet Amy Poehler. I hope they put us at the same table as part of Spotify.

• 5:04Sean Fennessey?

  Amy is great. I look forward to racing against her.

• 5:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Like a great hang.

• 5:07Sean Fennessey?

  She's, she is a good hang for sure. Uh, the other group, you know, can't say, don't know.

• 5:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 5:11Sean Fennessey?

  Again, no comment. Um, a regular person is not going to win this award. So it's important that everyone understands that folks like me and you are not up for this award.

• 5:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Now that the Golden Globes are owned by the same group that owns every single industry trade magazine, uh, they quote unquote, "take the award seriously, but, and don't jam it up with celebrities." So this is the category with which they will get all of the famous people back to the Golden Globes.

• 5:37Sean Fennessey?

  What if they just zagged and it was just pure integrity? It was just all science podcasts? You know, just.

• 5:42Amanda Dobbins?

  How many science podcasts are you listening to?

• 5:44Sean Fennessey?

  Depends on how you define science. I mean, you have Science Corner, so that's one.

• 5:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you.

• 5:48Sean Fennessey?

  Um, that's about it.

• 5:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 5:50Sean Fennessey?

  I do listen to Science Versus from time to time, which is, uh, owned by Spotify. Um, I'm not a Huberman guy, so that's, that's not of interest to me.

• 6:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Though I did, yeah, like a few weeks ago, we had dinner at a cousin's house and like my, Amy, if you're listening, it, Amy is now into Huberman as well. She started telling me about it. So it's reached the next generation.

• 6:10Sean Fennessey?

  Not Amy Poehler. You're saying a different Amy.

• 6:12Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no, different Amy, different Amy I'm related to.

• 6:14Sean Fennessey?

  Amy Poehler, if you're listening, thank you.

• 6:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, Amy Poehler, if you're listening, I can't wait to see you at the Golden Globes.

• 6:19Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, any other news? Anything else happen that you feel like is important?

• 6:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, they've got a new pope. Cowards. They only like 24 hours. Listen,

• 6:28Sean Fennessey?

  I'm glad you brought this up.

• 6:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I honestly, I don't remember the pope's name at this moment. I know that he's American, uh, but also spent a lot of time in Peru. Uh, I, I had no nothing about his politics. I just know that it was like, they did not do enough ballots, you know?

• 6:45Sean Fennessey?

  I can't say for sure whether that's true or not. I will never know.

• 6:47Amanda Dobbins?

  They phoned it in.

• 6:48Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, his, his, his name will be Pope Leo the 14.

• 6:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 6:52Sean Fennessey?

  Um, his real name is Robert Prevost.

• 6:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 6:55Sean Fennessey?

  He's an American.

• 6:55Amanda Dobbins?

  All right. Can you tell me your information source right now?

• 6:58Sean Fennessey?

  I'm looking at Reuters.

• 6:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Oh, good.

• 6:59Sean Fennessey?

  Which I believe is trustworthy.

• 7:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 7:01Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, you know, notably from Chicago, but attended Villanova, the Pennsylvania area college.

• 7:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 7:07Sean Fennessey?

  Which, um, is of course incredibly important to me and also quite timely because three key members of the New York Knicks all went to Villanova at the same time and were champions together.

• 7:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Is Villanova J. Wright?

• 7:19Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, yes, it is. Yes. J. Wright, legendary Villanova coach.

• 7:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Again.

• 7:23Sean Fennessey?

  Well, they'll always have my attention because they gave me Jalen Brunson.

• 7:26Amanda Dobbins?

  I think that the Cardinals phoned it in, you know? It's like, I understand that they don't want to be sequestered, I guess. Uh, and they want to be.

• 7:36Sean Fennessey?

  You're like the Upton Sinclair of the Pope folk.

• 7:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Even though, even though it did seem, according to the film Conclave, like the sequester, like the conclave is pretty porous, you know, like information could get in if it needs to. So it's fine. And they were, and the nuns were making them meals all the time, but they didn't want to do the work. They, they just like three black smokes and then we're out. Come on.

• 7:55Sean Fennessey?

  You know what? This felt a little ghoulish, but I should have followed up on this instinct, which is that when the previous pope died.

• 8:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:01Sean Fennessey?

  We should have done the Conclave watch along. That was really the move because everyone's watching that movie now.

• 8:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:06Sean Fennessey?

  On Peacock, they're renting it.

• 8:07Amanda Dobbins?

  I think we should have given it like a week and then.

• 8:09Sean Fennessey?

  To grieve?

• 8:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I was like, to not be the most ghoulish. I didn't, I didn't grieve. I don't, like I said, I don't know that much about Francis.

• 8:16Sean Fennessey?

  Don't forget God is watching. So be gentle.

• 8:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:19Sean Fennessey?

  Pope Francis and your thoughts always. And now Pope Leo the 14th will rise once more and, uh, I'm a lapsed Catholic, so.

• 8:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, Leo number one on our 35 over 35 list. Leo number one on the Pope list.

• 8:33Sean Fennessey?

  And the Leo birthdays are coming soon.

• 8:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 8:35Sean Fennessey?

  What a year for Leos. We did it. Paul Newman was not a Leo. He was born in January, January 2020, January 26th, 1925. He was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and that's where he grew up.

• 8:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 8:49Sean Fennessey?

  And when you look at his biography.

• 8:52Amanda Dobbins?

  That's like an under five seconds from like Pope jokes to.

• 8:56Sean Fennessey?

  This is what I do.

• 8:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I know that was like, you really turned that one on a dime.

• 8:59Sean Fennessey?

  I got other pods to record today, you know, I got meetings.

• 9:02Amanda Dobbins?

  No, no, no, no.

• 9:03Sean Fennessey?

  I got a screening. I've got to moderate a Q and A for tonight.

• 9:05Amanda Dobbins?

  We're, oh, what screening?

• 9:07Sean Fennessey?

  Pavements, you're gonna be there. Absolute maniac. We were just talking about this five minutes before recording. What screening?

• 9:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I'm sorry, I forgot. Yeah, no, I am going to be there, but whether or not I get to a microphone is, um, I guess, TDD.

• 9:20Sean Fennessey?

  Did you go to Capri Club earlier before the recording? Or is that just for later?

• 9:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Here's what I want to say right now. I, we have been preparing for this podcast for literal months.

• 9:28Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 9:28Amanda Dobbins?

  So do not Julia Roberts Hall of Fame me, okay?

• 9:31Sean Fennessey?

  I won't speed run it, I promise.

• 9:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 9:32Sean Fennessey?

  I, we have a lot to share. We accumulated a significant amount of research for this episode, which is unusual for us. It's usually just me like banging into a Google Doc for roughly 12 hours. This is a, in theory, a more developed conversation. I have watched too many Newman films, though. And that feeling that you described at the beginning of the episode, I think will infect some of this, which is just like, oh, yeah, and then there was this one, and then there was this one.

• 9:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 9:56Sean Fennessey?

  You know, I'd like to have like a bit of a broad conversation about his life first and about kind of what he meant to movies and what he meant to, um, America and to Hollywood and a lot of other things. Um, should preface this by saying, there's been a lot of great writing about Newman over the years. Basically, all of his films were reviewed by the film critics of their times. He's one of the signature movie stars of that time. There's a wonderful documentary called The Last Movie Stars that is about Paul Newman and his wife, Joanne Woodward, and they're kind of the intersection of their fame and their family over 45 years in America. That is very much worth watching, that is available on Max right now. I revisited it last night after seeing it when it came out a couple of years ago.

• 10:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I revisited it like in, the whole thing, but over the course of the last few months. It's great, directed by Ethan Hawke. It is like a very pandemic, uh, stuff. It was made during the pandemic and so it features. It features transcripts of a series of interviews that Newman's biographer did.

• 10:50Sean Fennessey?

  Stuart Stern.

• 10:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Before Paul Newman decided that he didn't want the biography to go forward and burned the tapes. So the tapes were burned, but the transcripts remained. And Woodward and Newman's kids brought these transcripts and kind of initiated the process of making this documentary that relies on these transcripts and a bunch of people you'll recognize reading the transcripts and a lot of footage. And it was useful in this exercise of just kind of grounding the individual films like in his career and in a place and time. It's a great documentary. I recommend it.

• 11:23Sean Fennessey?

  It's really expansive and covers, it's six episodes and covers roughly five and a half hours. We don't really have a lot of examples of this for even the greatest movie stars. You know, like Humphrey Bogart had a massive life as well. There's no six hour documentary. There's like a one hour and 50 minute documentary about his life and his, you know, marriage to Lauren Bacall and, you know, his relationships and his history. But it's rare to find something so fulsome. And it's exciting because that book didn't get published. So that book is, you know, this is as close as we're going to get to that book. Nevertheless, like looking over the sketches and traces and the kind of data points of his life is so interesting because he is kind of a signature member of the boomer generation.

• 12:07Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, he is like that real crux between greatest generation and boomer and baby boomer. And the way that he lived and worked is so reflected. His politics, his taste as an artist, the way that he lived as a man, really feels like this fascinating representation of America and America changing throughout the 20th century. So, you know, he died in 2008. He was 83 years old. Joanne Woodward is still alive. They were married for 50 years when he passed and she kind of retreated from public life some years ago after she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's, but she's still with us. She's 95 years old. Newman served in the Navy during World War II. He was stationed in Hawaii. It's been reported that he very nearly was on an aircraft carrier that was bombed during,

• 12:49Sean Fennessey?

  in the Pacific Theater, but he didn't, he didn't make it to that aircraft carrier because the pilot of his bombardier crew was ill one day. And so that plane never made it to the aircraft carrier. And so he survived World War II and moved back to Cleveland and. Through the G I. Bill, went to Kenyon College and then quickly moved to New York and started studying at Yale and then The Actor Studio. And so this, you know, this life, the son of a sports goods store owner and like a very, kind of like the, the sketch of normal man in America.

• 13:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 13:24Sean Fennessey?

  Very quickly becomes a star. He's on Broadway, one year out of The Actor Studio, starring in William Inge's Picnic, which is kind of a crazy thing. And so he arrives in New York at this critical time and he's doing theater and television. And pretty quickly after being on Broadway, gets into movies.

• 13:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 13:43Sean Fennessey?

  And so I remember, I was thinking about this when we did the Sidney Lumet episode and we were like, this guy was here at the dawn of television and at the dawn of the kind of New York theater acting revolution at The Actor Studio and Strasberg and Stella Adler and all these key figures. And Newman is kind of the actor version of that, you know, where he's, he's kind of right place, right time, everything kind of falls into place for him in so many ways.

• 14:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, except

• 14:07Amanda Dobbins?

  he, because he's an actor and not a director, he, he winds up on a studio contract and he winds up making a lot of things that you and I, quite frankly, had not seen until we started upon this project because they're not the most memorable. And like, you know, there, there are exceptions to that, like, Count on a Hot Tin Roof is pretty early in his career and, and, and memorable. And, you know, it's not that many years before The Hustler and then HUD. Like, there are kind of benchmarks along the way. But for a long time, like, he's just kind of stuck, like, second place to James Dean, making movies that

• 14:48Amanda Dobbins?

  don't really fit him or, or just kind of, or forgotten now for, to put it kindly.

• 14:55Amanda Dobbins?

  And so he is obviously like immediately a star and immediately has the success, but there is, he's not doing what he wants to do immediately and you can kind of sense that discomfort and that chip on his shoulder or that kind of chomping at, that like. In a suit that doesn't fit, basically, for a long time.

• 15:17Sean Fennessey?

  It's interesting because it's not like he is being cast in the 1956 version of Transformers. You know, he's getting to do Tennessee Williams adaptations or Roman period pieces or biopics about athletes. Like, on paper, a lot of the movies that he makes in the 50s, most of which are now sort of forgotten, or you'll hear their name, but nobody ever goes back and watches them. Like, My Journey Through Physical Media with his career has been fascinating because almost none of the movies from the 50s are even available on Blu-ray, let alone, like, 4K or anything like that. Like, they're all either Warner Archive DVDs, or you just can't get them. And so, you know, they're just not beloved movies, even though he makes a movie in 54 called The Silver Chalice, which is a real dud. And you can see that

• 16:02Sean Fennessey?

  that's the first instant of him kind of being like, shit. Like, what are they trying to make me here? What kind of actor am I supposed to be? Who am I as a guy? You know, he's not a stage-trained British theater actor who wants to do Shakespeare, but he's also not quite James Dean. You know, he's not that cool. He's beautiful.

• 16:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, yeah, not yet, anyway.

• 16:23Sean Fennessey?

  But something that transforms over time with him. So, he's a late bloomer, even though...

• 16:30Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, he really is. That's the other interesting thing about revisiting all of this. You put in our notes that you first saw Newman as, like, old guy Newman, and he does have this, I mean, you know, he worked for 60 years. So, but he has this kind of this resurgence in his 70s and 80s. Or, he's just, he's like, fully old, and he's like, playing the old guy roles with all of the, like, you know, experience and wisdom and all of, like, the accrued Newman-ness that we attach to him. I don't think I first saw him as a, as old Newman, actually. I think that I was shown Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, like, far too early in high school because of the Tennessee Williams situation.

• 17:10Sean Fennessey?

  Ironically, perhaps, his most virile.

• 17:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, yes.

• 17:13Sean Fennessey?

  Even though, relative to that story.

• 17:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure, we'll get into it. But he does really, like, find himself again.

• 17:24Amanda Dobbins?

  As the old guy and so like, and I do think he's a great old guy. And it is like a whole other phase of his career, which is different than late blooming. But there is something about, he had to wait and like, he didn't want to wait. And you can, and that is kind of what animates some of the better performances is that frustration. But it, he ages, he ages very well.

• 17:45Sean Fennessey?

  Let's talk about what made him a special actor. I made a lot of notes about the things that I like about him. He's world renowned for those, the blue eyes. He has these piercing blue eyes that are among the most, you know, it's like Betty Davis and Paul Newman. It's a very short list of people who you think of when you think of the eyes of Hollywood. Always seemed very funny, but not a clown, you know? Always seemed very cool, but not pretentious, you know? Always seemed very regular, but also somehow elevated. Like a real contradiction of terms in terms of what kind of star power he had and what kind of actor he was.

• 18:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, there's a, I think his magic is in the tension between what he looks like. The Paul Newman that you see, which is, you know, one of the most astonishingly attractive people to, to ever be on screen and, and also confident. And as you said, like at ease, like, you know, funny, but not like, ha, ha funny. Just some, a great Hank to, to use the parlance of the Golden Globes.

• 18:42Sean Fennessey?

  And amusing.

• 18:43Amanda Dobbins?

  And, and, but there, there's just so much going on inside that you can tell. And, and he is like very withholding. He's trying to keep it down, but like there's something tortured. There's like something that doesn't add up with this, you know, gift from God, like blessed exterior. And so trying to, like trying to pin him down as you watch him is what's fun about it. And then obviously like the magic comes when he actually like break whatever, whatever is inside him.

• 19:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 19:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Breaks out, which it doesn't always.

• 19:16Sean Fennessey?

  It's true. And some of the parts that he is very good at are the ones where it never breaks out, where there's just something right under the surface. I, I described it as an abiding turmoil, that there's this sense that all the time, there's something that is inside of him that he is, that is unexamined. And one of the great things about the last movie stars, and if you read about Newman, is that you see, especially as he kind of accrued more power in, and got more control over what kind of movies he makes. He was constantly putting his life and his feelings into his characters. He was finding ways to mold the characters, to communicate things about. His relationship with his parents, or his relationship with his wife, or his struggles as a parent, or his struggles with addiction. All of this stuff from his life, even though he's not a writer, he is a director, but you know, even the films that he directs,

• 20:00Sean Fennessey?

  you don't always feel like they're like born of his own personal experience. But in the movie star parts, he's putting himself in them so concretely and so excitingly. And I think we project a lot of that onto movie stars on the show. And we just had this conversation about Mission Impossible Fallout. And I'm like, this is Tom Cruise apologizing for everything he did in 2002 or whatever. But you can, he literally would like go on Dick Cavett and say like, I didn't feel good about how I lived this part of my life. And I communicated that in the movie, which is just fascinating. I mean, there's like a level of vulnerability, I think, to him as a, as a famous person and as an actor that is very rare, even though he was very good at playing guys who were very shielded as well.

• 20:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Well, in the old days, they just, they actually did share more, I guess, because they just didn't have social media.

• 20:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, no therapy.

• 20:49Amanda Dobbins?

  No therapy. I mean, well, no therapy until later in life. There's, but they really, I guess, even like going on Dick Cavett was like not as big a deal because 45,000 people wouldn't aggregate it or whatever.

• 21:04Sean Fennessey?

  That's a good point.

• 21:04Amanda Dobbins?

  So, but they, yeah, they got pretty real. And the, the last movie stars has a lot of tape of both Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward just like really sharing.

• 21:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, really, like the struggles of marriage. I remember that, you know, that famous moment when Ben Affleck won, was it Best Picture, when he was like, marriage is a lot of work.

• 21:22Amanda Dobbins?

  But it's worth it.

• 21:22Sean Fennessey?

  But it's worth it. And you know, for 300 years, we were like, we'll talk about what Ben Affleck said at the Oscars forever.

• 21:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 21:28Sean Fennessey?

  They were doing this routinely.

• 21:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly.

• 21:30Sean Fennessey?

  You know, one of the things I like about him is that he clearly is like a, a hyper-trained, skilled actor, who understands the kind of concepts of evolving acting style that's happening in America in that time. And he's really into rehearsal and he's really into like knocking, like making sure he knows who the character is and how he wants to play it beforehand. But you don't really feel that method or that sense of that like overweening sense of like, this guy's trying really hard.

• 22:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 22:01Sean Fennessey?

  You know, that that's not part of an energy.

• 22:02Amanda Dobbins?

  And if you do, it's not really a role or a movie that's working as well. Because like, I, it takes a lot of work in really any field or any walk of life to look unstudied and to look like you just, you know, rolled out of bed.

• 22:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, how are we doing?

• 22:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, could do this.

• 22:21Sean Fennessey?

  Are we pulling it off?

• 22:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, every day. Um, but that was his skill. And it does, as you say, like, require preparation and work. And there is like, uh, study to it. But what he was best at, like, you know, like, there are some of the period pieces that are here that just, it's, that's not what I want from Paul Newman. And that's not.

• 22:44Sean Fennessey?

  It's not what he was good at.

• 22:45Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not what he was good at. We were talking about some of the accent work before we started for both Paul Newman and Joanne, you know, some highs and some lows. Now, some of that is just because this is a person who worked all the time.

• 22:55Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 22:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Really liked working and tried a lot of different stuff, tried a lot of different genres, tried a lot, a lot of different type of roles. He also just, you know, the numbers are so large that he played like 48 different cowboys and 12 different private investigators. And, you know, he, and, and some things work better than others, but the, the unforced, the, just the light touch performances.

• 23:18Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, he does strike you as like a, a hyper serious and curious artist, but not pretentious. And someone who does want to try something different on a regular basis. But at a certain point, as a star, knew when he needed to kind of circle the wagons and get a hit, knew when he could kind of go far afield and try something unusual. He learns in the 60s that like, there are some limitations to his flexibility as an actor. He takes on a couple of parts that are pretty disastrous. The other thing too, is when you work this much, he's made a lot of stinkers. He made a lot of movies that are okay at best. And he also.

• 23:55Sean Fennessey?

  Has for us, I think, the easiest Hall of Fame of all time because he has so many iconic roles. Then it would be hard to turn down some of the movies that could go in. So I did have an idea about that that I'll pitch to you as we get a little further in the conversation.

• 24:10Sean Fennessey?

  But yeah, he just had this knack for turning out a hit when his career needed it.

• 24:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, he, and this is like the title theory of the documentary that we've been referencing. But like, he really did understand how to be a movie star in every single way from sharing, you know, the public perception and sharing that we discussed, like he would give some of it and then, you know, burns the tapes, right? Like, obviously Newman's Own and the entire, all of his philanthropy work, but also, you know, his work in the civil rights movement, et cetera. Like, he understood that he had a platform. He understood sooner than most people how to use that, how to even use like his image and his face

• 24:51Amanda Dobbins?

  on the carton of the lemonade, uh, in a way to further what he wanted to do. It was very savvy and, and, and that came from like, from understanding his own star power and like trajectory as a star, not just as an actor.

• 25:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think we also live in a time of performative good service and performative ethics and performative politics. And even though he was very public with his politics, which he, he described as kind of coming too late. He described as he was a star for 10 years. And I think it was Stuart Rosenberg, who he worked with many times, described him as basically apolitical for the first 10 years that he knew him. And he has these, this kind of dawning realization in the Kennedy era. It kind of feels like it matches somewhat with him taking on the hustler and HUD and like more complicated anti-hero type roles.

• 25:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, right, right.

• 25:39Sean Fennessey?

  And he becomes very interested in civil rights and starts working very closely with Harry Belafonte and Martin Luther King and becomes interested in the presidential race and Eugene McCarthy. And he is this.

• 25:55Sean Fennessey?

  Unusually articulate and thoughtful, hyper-famous movie star. There's a couple of people, you know, we mentioned Affleck already, Clooney voices Newman in the documentary.

• 26:05Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a good fit.

• 26:05Sean Fennessey?

  When you watch the documentary, you're like, did Clooney take every move from Newman? Like so many of the moves that he has leaned on.

• 26:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Even like graying early.

• 26:14Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, his style, his sense of ease, his comfort in his fame and in his ability to develop a character. Never straying too far outside the character. You know, Clooney's good politics, whether you agree with his politics or not, that he's been very consistent as a publicly outspoken famous person. I think he kind of set a template for the progressive movie star that no one has ever really matched. And it's interesting too, because inside of his career, he's taking on more and more movies that reflect how he feels about the world. And in some ways, it's kind of generating this discontent, this like rage that he has at the way that the world is going with Vietnam and the way that

• 26:52Sean Fennessey?

  people who have less than are mistreated in this country, like all these very clear progressive values. And then he kind of runs out of patience and he's like, fuck, I can't make movies like this and try to beat people over the head with my point of view. And he starts literally failing in his work because he's let his point of view get too strong inside of the movie. So he has to find alternative ways to communicate some of his ideas. But again, he's not writing these movies, like he's scouting material that fits the point of view that he has on the world. So just like you said, use the word savvy. I think that's the thing that I realized when you see him in the seventies and he's like a father of six and uh, which is unfathomable. You know, he's once divorced and remarried and he's also a high functioning alcoholic.

• 27:35Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, he would drink a case of beer a day or he would have six to eight martinis at night.

• 27:39Amanda Dobbins?

  And then, yeah, the six to eight martinis was a extraordinary detail.

• 27:44Sean Fennessey?

  It's unfathomable how he lived and was so beautiful, never gained weight, is so graceful in seemingly everything he did. And also was bereft inside and drunk all the time. It's just, it's one of the craziest lives that's ever happened, really in American life, but especially in Hollywood.

• 28:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 28:05Sean Fennessey?

  And then he somehow, you know, rebuilt his relationship with John Woodward. They never split up. They renew their vows. He enters this old guy phase of his career. And then he becomes the guy who like lifts up the younger person.

• 28:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 28:18Sean Fennessey?

  You know, he lifts up Tom Cruise, he lifts up Melanie Griffith, he lifts up Tom Hanks. He lifts, he lifts up these actors that he shares scenes with and has things passed down to him.

• 28:28Sean Fennessey?

  Throughout his entire career, I noted, as I was watching some of these movies, either for the first time or for a third, fifth, twelfth time, really good scene partner.

• 28:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 28:38Sean Fennessey?

  You know, not just with his wife, though, he's great with his wife, but he really like, he really engages the performer. And if they're having a moment, Sidney Poitier is having a moment in a movie, he will like genuflect at Sidney Poitier to make it clear that we should all be watching him. He doesn't draw the attention away from the other people in the movie, which is, sounds stupid, but is unusual.

• 28:58Amanda Dobbins?

  No, it's really true. And especially for someone who also, and who's, who's signature talent is just kind of like filling the screen and brooding with those eyes in such a way that you, I mean, you're happy to be watching him, you're, you think you know what's going on underneath, but you're not totally sure. And it, but it is just like, like a shot of a man standing there, you know? And that, and then it's like incredible acting, but it's true. He's really responsive to everyone else. And it is, you can see who he, uh, who he likes and who he thinks is a good actor. Joanne Woodward being first and like among them. It's like some of the movies they made are just not very good, but any scene when the two of them are on screen, there's lights up. You really understand it. But that goes through, through all of the movies.

• 29:43Amanda Dobbins?

  It's like there are just moments of suddenly being like, oh, look, like Paul Newman's awake because this other person is, you know, giving something to him and he's giving it back. And it's really exciting.

• 29:52Sean Fennessey?

  It really is. He, um, he's in this, he's stuck in this middle zone. I asked Tracy Letts about him.

• 29:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 29:59Sean Fennessey?

  I said, like, can you give me some thoughts on Newman as a performer? As somebody who's been watching movies for a really long time and understands, you know, playwriting and stage performance. And, um, he located him closer to what Henry Fonda or Gregory Peck or Jimmy Stewart represented, and that he was closer to those guys than he actually was to the new Hollywood stars like Redford or Newman or Jack Nicholson, which I think is really interesting because he's kind of a, he's like arguably the bridge figure. He is the person who, he was never really in the new Hollywood, though he did work with Sidney Lumet and Sidney Pollock and a lot of practitioners who were working at that time. But he also worked with Hitchcock and he worked with Mark Robson and he worked with, you know, all of these like 50s Hollywood studio contract filmmakers.

• 30:44Sean Fennessey?

  And his acting style, you know, his, his probably biggest heavyweight contemporary is Marlon Brando, but Lumet has this great quote, he said of Newman, who he worked with on The Verdict, "When you meet him and talk to him, there's no indication that this is a man who's the talent that he has and that seeming normalcy that fascinates me because clearly his life has been anything but normal. So it's the exact opposite of Marlon Brando."

• 31:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 31:08Sean Fennessey?

  That Brando is this like, um, you can feel the effort in the transformation that he's making and that he's making unto acting.

• 31:16Amanda Dobbins?

  He is, Marlon Brando walks into a room and is like, "I'm acting."

• 31:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, exactly. Yes.

• 31:20Amanda Dobbins?

  And look at me do it. And I'm like the greatest ever do it, but like here it is. And now we're acting.

• 31:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 31:25Amanda Dobbins?

  And yeah, I, I think, I mean, you know, Tracy's the smartest and the best, but the, the Henry Fonda's of the world are, you know, hold the screen just by their like, their, their normalness and their, are they going to figure this out and are they going to do the right thing? And Newman obviously like takes a bunch of roles that start to subvert that idea.

• 31:51Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 31:52Amanda Dobbins?

  But he still has that old school quality of like, well, I sure hope he's going to do the right thing.

• 31:58Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, exactly. That's exactly what it is. I think what Tracy was describing as a kind of morality, I would maybe use the word integrity, that you get the sense that there's something, even when he's playing a piece of shit, and he played plenty of pieces of shit in his career. The, the paradox of Hud is that Hud is this great breakthrough anti-hero of American cinema.

• 32:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 32:16Sean Fennessey?

  And he's like, one of the most important movie characters really of all time. He says a lot about, I think, like what the mindset of the country was in the early 60s and where we were going. But people were with him and rooting for him, even though he's a motherfucker. He's a real bastard in that movie, but because he conveyed that sense of- I guess decency or something, just that magnetism that he had, that it made him different. And I think you made the key point, which is that James Dean is probably the most important person to his life that he didn't actually spend very much time with.

• 32:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 32:49Sean Fennessey?

  Because there were a lot of parts that they both went up for when Dean was alive. And when Dean died, I don't think any American actor benefited more from that death than Newman. The parts that he got, the way he got to slide into the culture, and also the way that the culture got to move away from that kind of brooding sense of like wounded cool that Dean represented into something like a little bit sunnier and a little bit more approachable. But if it needed to go dark, it could go dark. But that wasn't what, how we thought about Newman in the, in the persona sense of the term. You know, he was like an ambassador for movies.

• 33:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. That's, I mean, that's true. Though then you think about like every single signature role. I guess not everyone, but most of them, they are like way darker that.

• 33:35Sean Fennessey?

  They are. They are. Even the happy movies, he's like a criminal.

• 33:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Well, sure. And that's fine. Those, I mean, he's like, he's like Robin Hood. It's fine. But, but you know, I'm thinking of like Hud and Hustler and Cool Hand Luke. And like these, those, those are tough. Those are really, really screwed up guys.

• 33:50Sean Fennessey?

  You're 100% right. I, I feel like those movies would seem even darker if they were Brando or Dean or Monty Clift, you know?

• 33:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I think they, they would sing melodramatic with Brando or, or Dean because they would go so far. They would, they would be wallowing. And there is something to Newman that is like resisting any feelings at all, you know, that is, but, but, you know, he's a human being. So they tug at him. And that is what keeps it from being like a soap opera.

• 34:19Sean Fennessey?

  I agree with you. I think that's well put. Dean was originally cast to play the role of Rocky Graziano in Somebody Up There Likes Me, which is sort of Newman's big breakthrough in the movies. But he died, so Newman got the role. He also replaced Dean in the role of a boxer in the television adaptation of Hemingway's story, The Battler, which is something that comes up again when he eventually makes, they make this very strange movie called Adventures of a Young, Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man. And Newman actually does play the battler in that movie. It's one of the weirdest parts that Newman ever played. I think the other thing to consider too is that it felt like the new Hollywood was fighting Vietnam and Paul Newman actually served in World War II. Like even though he was making The Sting and adapting Ken Kesey novels and working

• 35:01Sean Fennessey?

  on art in the seventies that felt like this kind of progressive, transgressive stuff, he was literally-

• 35:09Amanda Dobbins?

  He was in his 50s in the seventies.

• 35:11Sean Fennessey?

  Exactly, exactly. He was an older guy.

• 35:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, and he was, like, would you call him anti-establishment? You know, the sixties roles-

• 35:22Sean Fennessey?

  I think that that's ultimately what they represent.

• 35:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Are what they represent, but it's, you're right, it's a slightly different period in time and a slightly different establishment.

• 35:31Sean Fennessey?

  And they're metaphorical. They're not actually like men marching against the war. And it's not even Easy Rider, you know, where they're like breaking the law on the outskirts of society. It's like, it's a guy in a chain gang, it's a cattle rancher, it's a pool hustler. These are people that are like even barely in society.

• 35:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 35:49Sean Fennessey?

  And I think because of that, he doesn't feel the same way that like Peter Fonda felt like anti-establishment.

• 36:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 36:00Sean Fennessey?

  You know, where you, he actually was kind of like-

• 36:02Amanda Dobbins?

  He was rejecting, yeah.

• 36:03Sean Fennessey?

  Exactly. He was rejecting his own father and the idea of America in some ways. And Newman was very suspicious of America, but weirdly has this like kind of deep-seated sense of patriotism too that is kind of at war with some of his feelings about where the country's going. Again, like we never get to have a conversation about movie star like this because none of them ever communicate any of these ideas. They don't ever have this kind of life experience that Newman brought to a lot of his fame. And also a lot of people who have this life experience don't get to become movie stars. So he's really interesting. I mean, he got to interpret Tennessee Williams multiple times, William Inge, William Faulkner, Larry McMurtry. Like he got to work on a lot of those historical mid-century texts about like wounded men, sad men.

• 36:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 36:46Sean Fennessey?

  Which-

• 36:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Working through it.

• 36:47Sean Fennessey?

  We used to make movies about courageous men in the 40s and then sad men in the 50s and then really destroyed men in the 60s and 70s. And then the 80s, women got to make some movies.

• 36:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure. And we were mostly just, we were sad and trying to have it all.

• 37:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And how about now?

• 37:01Amanda Dobbins?

  And then ultimately happy.

• 37:02Sean Fennessey?

  And now you get to make The Love List.

• 37:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:05Sean Fennessey?

  Everything's going great.

• 37:07Sean Fennessey?

  I also like the way that filmmakers and other actors would use his beauty against him. You know, that he was often playing characters that were like impotent or were closeted or were hiding something about their past and that when you're so beautiful.

• 37:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 37:21Sean Fennessey?

  It's like when you meet a genuinely beautiful person in the world and you're like, what's wrong with you?

• 37:25Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, if you like, if, if you didn't do that, then he is, he is so beautiful that he could veer into like cheesecake territory, you know? And like, if he were just smiling and happy, then he would just be like another Bachelor contestant, you know? And you, or Bachelorette, I guess. He would just be like, ah, like, okay, like, you're cute. But there is, you do have to subvert it. And I think he knows that. And, and I think just some of his power comes from the fact that he's, he is so tortured by it. And it's like, no, I'm not that cheesecake that, um, that it like, it deepens it. But yeah, you gotta do something because otherwise you're just like staring at the sun.

• 38:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I'm trying to think, you know, like we have Robert Pattinson now, like Robert Pattinson could have become a kind of cheesecake, like a brooding cheesecake.

• 38:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, I mean, I, he's, he's obviously so handsome, but there is something like interesting about, it's not like cookie cutter. Like, I feel, you know, if you like bought a, like a doll, like he, like he has a Ken doll, but like Paul Newman could be.

• 38:29Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 38:29Amanda Dobbins?

  And then, except like with blue eyes that are real. And I don't, I definitely tortured him. He talks a lot about it, about trying to be more than just like this incredibly attractive person, but he also used it very well.

• 38:44Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think he said, one of the things he would want on his tombstone would be that were his eyes to turn brown, his, his life and career would be over.

• 38:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I think it's like, here lies Paul Newman, whose career ended because his eyes turned brown.

• 38:57Sean Fennessey?

  Right, right.

• 38:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Something like that.

• 39:01Sean Fennessey?

  Let's just mention some of the philanthropy that you talked about before we start getting into the movie career.

• 39:07Sean Fennessey?

  As you said, lifelong outspoken advocate for civil rights. His son died of an overdose in 1978 and after he passed away, Scott, he started the Scott Newman Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, and that lasted for 35 years. He's best known for Newman Zone,

• 39:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 39:23Sean Fennessey?

  which is a food company that he started when he was living in Connecticut with his family in 1982 with A. E. Hockner, who was a writer and his best friend. And that's a company that still exists to this day, and all of their post-tax proceeds go to charity, all of them.

• 39:40Amanda Dobbins?

  I think I said that my first introduction to Paul Newman was probably Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, but I think it's actually, and I was always going for the lemonade, you know?

• 39:50Sean Fennessey?

  We had the lemonade from time to time, more of a Tropicana household, as I recall, but, or Minute Maid, not sure. But the salad dressing, no question.

• 39:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, and like, but the cartons, the branding, his face is absolutely seared into my brain. Like, it's like a real, you know, you're an 80s kid if.

• 40:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, I mean popcorn, salsa, wine, pasta sauce, like, they did and do everything.

• 40:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Jack, do the children know about Newman Zone?

• 40:15Speaker 04

  They do, especially the salad dressing.

• 40:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, great. All right, I'm glad, I'm glad.

• 40:19Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and I mean, over these 40-plus years, they've generated $600 million in charity, which is just, again, just amazing. Like, a lot of famous people do charitable work, not like this.

• 40:29Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 40:30Sean Fennessey?

  They don't build companies that are entirely existing to, in theory, create healthy foods that will then lead to the proceeds for charity for child-focused programs. And then the other thing he did is that he and Woodward established the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp, which is a summer camp for children and families who are coping with cancer, which is like, one of the most pure things you could possibly do in the universe.

• 40:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's really, it's wonderful.

• 40:57Sean Fennessey?

  So this is just a high-level philanthropist who's also conducting one of the greatest movie careers in the history of that work.

• 41:05Amanda Dobbins?

  A real get-shit-done guy, also, which is, which is key to actually being, doing anything but being a philanthropist, and I guess, like, you know, having a successful career, but it's just, he saw a lot of things through the finish line.

• 41:18Sean Fennessey?

  I don't really, I would say that the last movie stars, which accomplishes a lot, especially for a documentary made during COVID and using a lot of Zoom footage. I don't, the one thing it doesn't communicate is the how of that. Like, how did he do it?

• 41:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, especially while being a functioning alcoholic.

• 41:34Sean Fennessey?

  It's very hard to understand.

• 41:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 41:36Sean Fennessey?

  You know, I can barely.

• 41:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it communicates.

• 41:38Sean Fennessey?

  Get my kid dressed in the morning.

• 41:38Amanda Dobbins?

  It communicates that Joanne Woodward stayed home throughout much of the 60s.

• 41:42Sean Fennessey?

  Hundred percent.

• 41:43Amanda Dobbins?

  In order, and put her career second. In order to raise the kids while he, while his career flourished.

• 41:49Sean Fennessey?

  There would be, there's a really interesting episode like this to be done about Joanne Woodward, too. And the way that their careers kind of rose and fell in different phases and why. And the resentments that came because of that and the way that they kind of held it together. But that there was always something unresolved in some ways, it seems like. Because she won an Oscar in 1958 and was the much bigger star when they got together.

• 42:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 42:09Sean Fennessey?

  And then slowly things shift like this because of the work that he gets to do. And then they have a family. So that's.

• 42:15Amanda Dobbins?

  And age and, you know, Hollywood being awful.

• 42:18Sean Fennessey?

  Hollywood, exactly. So I have a bunch of data points to share before we start going through the movies.

• 42:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, great. Okay.

• 42:23Sean Fennessey?

  Eight competitive acting nominations. And he was nominated in five different decades. I'll, I'll wait to share which films were nominated for Academy Awards.

• 42:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 42:33Sean Fennessey?

  He also was nominated for Best Picture for a movie he directed in 1969 called Rachel, Rachel. He also won an Academy, an honorary Oscar in 86, which is before he won a competitive acting Oscar.

• 42:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 42:46Sean Fennessey?

  And then in 1994, he won the humanitarian award. So he's won three Oscars. He's won four Golden Globes, but never for feature film acting, which tells you everything you need to know about the Golden Globes and their podcast category.

• 43:01Sean Fennessey?

  He frequently liked to work with the same filmmaker. He made five movies with Martin Writ, four movies with Stuart Rosenberg, three movies with George Roy Hill, two with Robert Altman, two with Robert Benton, two with Richard Brooks, two with James Gladstone, two with John Huston, two with Mark Robson, two with Jack Smite, two with Robert Wise. And then, as I said, he got to work with Hitchcock, Lumet, Scorsese, Pollock, the Coen Brothers, Otto Preminger, James Ivory and John Lasseter. That's a pretty hallowed collection of filmmakers across 50 years. So he had great taste, even though he made a bunch of shitty movies.

• 43:34Amanda Dobbins?

  It's kind of fascinating. You know, it doesn't always come out.

• 43:36Sean Fennessey?

  It doesn't always come out. He and Woodward worked together on 16 different movies. He directed her, I believe, four times. They starred alongside one another 10 times in feature films. She won the best actress at Cannes for her work in The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man in the Moon Marigold, which is a very tough movie, a very hard movie to watch.

• 43:55Amanda Dobbins?

  That's the one that she disliked.

• 43:56Sean Fennessey?

  She hated that character.

• 43:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 43:58Sean Fennessey?

  Hated playing her. And also, her daughter, their daughter, Nell, was her co-star in the movie. Really like a tough, kind of hard-bitten drama from 1972. And he also, I forgot to mention, he was a fucking race car driver. And not only a race car driver, but a successful one at that, who actually won races in the 1980s and was close friends with Mario Andretti.

• 44:15Amanda Dobbins?

  And he like finished second at Le Mans at like, at age like 54 or something, in his 50s. It's really...

• 44:21Sean Fennessey?

  Again, high-function alcoholic, professional race car driver.

• 44:23Amanda Dobbins?

  They just made them different back then.

• 44:25Sean Fennessey?

  It's insane.

• 44:26Amanda Dobbins?

  And the world was built differently.

• 44:28Sean Fennessey?

  It really was.

• 44:29Amanda Dobbins?

  For better and mostly for worse, but, you know, good for Paul Newman for figuring it out.

• 44:33Sean Fennessey?

  He's a magical, magical person. He made 57 feature films in his career. That's not including documentary and whatnot.

• 44:40Amanda Dobbins?

  So here's my number one anxiety as we go into the Hall of Fame. It's remembering which films are which.

• 44:46Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 44:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Because I have, I have seen almost all of them.

• 44:48Sean Fennessey?

  Well, you told me I didn't have to watch a couple.

• 44:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 44:50Sean Fennessey?

  That I just could not get to.

• 44:51Amanda Dobbins?

  But it is, but there is going to be a little bit of me like Googling the title and being like, oh, right, okay, so this is the one where, you know, he's, he's a lawyer, and this is the one where he is so-and-so, because there are a lot. And some of them do, especially the early ones, kind of blend, bleed together.

• 45:10Sean Fennessey?

  I have some, some recall on some of these films. I think once we get to roughly 1963, we're going to be okay.

• 45:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 45:18Sean Fennessey?

  I did want to suggest that in addition to red, yellow, and green, we each get a pair of purples.

• 45:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 45:24Sean Fennessey?

  And purples are special delineations for Sean and Amanda, in which we get to say, "You should watch this movie."

• 45:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Why are they purple?

• 45:31Sean Fennessey?

  I thought it would just be a nice color to include in the mix.

• 45:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 45:34Sean Fennessey?

  Would you prefer orange?

• 45:35Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I was, I mean, I guess if it were, I, yeah, I guess I was trying to do some like color theory, you know?

• 45:42Sean Fennessey?

  Feel free.

• 45:43Amanda Dobbins?

  But, no, orange...

• 45:44Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, it could be blue if you want, but I wanted to degender it.

• 45:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, that's so nice. But I like blue.

• 45:48Sean Fennessey?

  I know you're wearing blue right now. It's a very nice shirt.

• 45:50Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you. I, you know, I did think of Paul Newman's eyes when I put it on.

• 45:54Sean Fennessey?

  Well done.

• 45:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, ye- purple's fine.

• 45:58Sean Fennessey?

  Make another choice.

• 45:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I like blue.

• 46:00Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, it'll be blue.

• 46:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 46:01Sean Fennessey?

  We'll each get two blues.

• 46:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 46:03Sean Fennessey?

  So we'll be able to say that these, because this is challenging, because as I said.

• 46:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:07Sean Fennessey?

  His iconography is so steeped in roughly 11 movies.

• 46:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, that we're not, like, we can't get too cute.

• 46:13Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 46:14Amanda Dobbins?

  We like to be a little cute, but not that cute.

• 46:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, so the blues are for cuteness.

• 46:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 46:18Sean Fennessey?

  And everything else is for discussion. The first film in his film career, non-television division, because he did make a couple TV movies in the 50s, is The Silver Chalice.

• 46:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 46:26Sean Fennessey?

  Which was a Roman epic, huge bomb at the box office. Paul hated his performance in the movie.

• 46:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, like, very self-deprecating about it, which is, which is a theme.

• 46:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 46:36Amanda Dobbins?

  When he is embarrassed about a movie, then he spends a lot of time afterwards talking about it and being like, "Sorry, I hope you didn't see that one."

• 46:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, a move that, of course, George Clooney has pulled many times over his career as well. Shot at Warner Brothers same time as East of Eden, James Dean turned down the role in The Silver Chalice to make East of Eden.

• 46:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 46:52Sean Fennessey?

  You can see their careers like this at that time. Um, this movie is red.

• 46:56Amanda Dobbins?

  It is.

• 46:57Sean Fennessey?

  In the Hall of Fame. It's not going in. It is one of the worst movies that he made, honestly, because it's also not interesting. He made a lot of movies that didn't work.

• 47:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 47:05Sean Fennessey?

  But at least they were going for something. This is just like The Robe and The Ten Commandments and, you know, a lot of films like that, but just the lesser version. 56, Somebody Up There Likes Me, big star-making performance.

• 47:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 47:16Sean Fennessey?

  Classic biopic. He's playing Rocky Graziano. I'm not sure Paul Newman necessarily conveys Italian New Yorker.

• 47:23Amanda Dobbins?

  I was gonna say, like, his physicality is pretty interesting because he does a lot of sports movies very credibly, but I don't know if boxing, in general, I don't know if he's the world's greatest puncher. And I understand that in the 50s and 60s and 70s, we were, you know, we didn't have the technology and the choreography that we have today, and so people were, you know, doing the fakes or whatever, but it's, it's just.

• 47:51Sean Fennessey?

  It's a good take.

• 47:52Amanda Dobbins?

  It's, uh.

• 47:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, let's do the, let's do the puncher's Hall of Fame.

• 47:54Amanda Dobbins?

  He has, he has many wonderful qualities, but I wouldn't say that his boxing was the most believable aspect of this film.

• 48:02Sean Fennessey?

  I wouldn't say that either. Um. So that's not going in.

• 48:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 48:07Sean Fennessey?

  Somebody up there likes me is very well regarded for what it is, I would say.

• 48:14Sean Fennessey?

  It didn't get an Oscar nomination, but I think it kind of puts him on the radar of the academy and the industry at large. And so they know that they can trust him with some more complicated material. The next film he makes is the same year. It's called The Rack. It's a, it's a pretty interesting movie. Did you watch this movie?

• 48:30Amanda Dobbins?

  I did. It's a courtroom.

• 48:33Sean Fennessey?

  It's a courtroom drama. It's, it's, uh, it's a story by Rod Serling and the screenplay is written by Stuart Stern, who is the man who would go on to write those unpublished memoirs.

• 48:44Sean Fennessey?

  And it's about a guy who was captured by the Japanese and who informed, turned, and comes back to America after informing on the US government and kind of like this moral quandary that he finds himself in as a man trying to resituate in America and how his family feels about him, his parents, his,

• 49:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 49:03Sean Fennessey?

  his, the woman in his life. And it's like a little broad in terms, it's like a little melodramatic.

• 49:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 49:10Sean Fennessey?

  And he does a bunch of movies like this in the 50s where it's like with a slightly different filmmaker. You could see this becoming an all time classic, but it's just a little off. But you can see like what a skilled actor he is, I would say.

• 49:20Amanda Dobbins?

  And he has this like climactic monologue, like on the stand. Well, you know, like.

• 49:25Sean Fennessey?

  It's very few good men.

• 49:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly. And where he, like all of his characters, uh, like emotions and conflicts are, you know, kind of brought in front of everyone and it's very good.

• 49:36Sean Fennessey?

  It's, it's a movie that if you really like Newman, it is worth seeking out, uh, especially for this early period. That's going to be read though.

• 49:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 49:43Sean Fennessey?

  The next movie is The Helen Morgan Story, which I did not watch.

• 49:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I watched it.

• 49:46Sean Fennessey?

  So it's directed by Michael Curtiz. This is a movie that Newman was forced to make by Jack Warner when he was under that contract that we talked about at Warner Brothers. So what's the movie?

• 49:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. So it is about, it stars Anne Blythe and Paul Newman, and she plays Helen Morgan, who's like a, a torch singer and he is. Manager love interest and it kinda so you know, there's a little bit of like a star is born in it. And he's a little sleazy and he's in and out and is he making money off of, you know. So he's not, he's not a good guy, but he's also not the center of, of, of the story. It's her and it's, it's not that great.

• 50:28Sean Fennessey?

  It's interesting that he starts getting slotted into parts like this because his next movie, this, I would say Helen Morgan story and this next movie are both read, but Until They Sail from 1957, which is a pretty interesting movie about a, a group of New Zealand sisters who all fall in love with US Marines during World War II. And it's, it's Gene Simons and Joan Fontaine and Piper Laurie. Joan Fontaine is majestic in this movie. She's so beautiful. And he did the movie because Robert Wise directed and he directed Somebody Up There Likes Me. But again, Newman has a fairly modest part in this movie. He's not the focus. The sisters are really the focus of the movie. And it just feels like another movie where it's like this guy's under contract. He was a soldier once. He'd look good in this movie.

• 51:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Just slot him in.

• 51:10Sean Fennessey?

  Just slot him in.

• 51:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 51:11Sean Fennessey?

  And then, so I feel like this happens to every big star, but you have movies like this where like, how many of our listeners have heard of, let alone seen Until They Sail? It's as though it does not exist, even though it's like right, the movie he makes right before The Long Hot Summer, which is a critical movie in his career.

• 51:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 51:29Sean Fennessey?

  It's interesting.

• 51:31Amanda Dobbins?

  How, I think this was available, but.

• 51:34Sean Fennessey?

  You could, yeah.

• 51:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's available.

• 51:35Sean Fennessey?

  It's on DVD. You can get it on DVD.

• 51:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, so is it in your?

• 51:38Sean Fennessey?

  I have it on DVD. Yeah. That's how I watched it.

• 51:39Amanda Dobbins?

  So do you have every single Paul Newman movie that's available on Blu-ray or?

• 51:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, there's a couple things that.

• 51:47Amanda Dobbins?

  That's available on a disc?

• 51:48Sean Fennessey?

  It's a generous question. Thank you, Amanda. Um, you know.

• 51:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, because you did, you'd lent me a couple and we'll talk about them. But there was one where I was just like, I, I would like to understand why Sean owns this movie.

• 51:59Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, I bought a bunch. I bought a bunch of stuff for this.

• 52:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Oh, okay.

• 52:03Sean Fennessey?

  But there's also something about him working so consistently with a group of filmmakers who are like, I own other films of. So then it's kind of like part of the collection where it's like, now I own a bunch of movies that Mark Robson has directed, a bunch of movies that Robert Wise has, you know, Robert Wise directed The Andromeda Strain, West Side Story, you know.

• 52:19Amanda Dobbins?

  And The Sound of Music.

• 52:20Sean Fennessey?

  Sound of Music. Yes, of course.

• 52:23Sean Fennessey?

  Many other great movies.

• 52:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Citizen Kane.

• 52:24Sean Fennessey?

  He directed Star Trek: The Motion Picture. So Until They Sail is red, and then in 1958, he makes The Long Hot Summer. Now, he had met Joanne Woodward on picnic in 1953. She was the understudy and he was the star. They clearly got along. It's unclear if anything happened. It seemed like there was some sort of situation, but he was married at the time with kids. They reconnect on this movie, The Long Hot Summer, which is kind of like an amalgam of a bunch of William Faulkner's stories, kind of blended up into one novelized film about, it also pulls from some Tennessee Williams kind of mythology, like the Orson Welles character in this movie is sort of Big Daddy.

• 53:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 53:09Sean Fennessey?

  From Cat in a Hot Tin Roof, but he hasn't made Cat in a Hot Tin Roof yet. But Paul and Joanne are in this movie together. It's always okay. It feels like there are other better.

• 53:17Amanda Dobbins?

  They're really good at it, though.

• 53:19Sean Fennessey?

  As I was gonna say, their chemistry is hot in this movie, and he looks amazing in this movie.

• 53:23Amanda Dobbins?

  He looks great, and he has a couple magical scenes, like, I mean, he is like the handsome guy that rolls up to town and everyone is like, who's that? You know, there is a scene where the ladies are like having tea on the porch outside and they're just like, ooh. But the scene when he's on yet another porch and she's, you know, asleep and he's like, oh Clara. I mean, it's, and I think he's shirtless for no good reason other than why wouldn't Paul maybe be shirtless?

• 53:49Sean Fennessey?

  He's certainly in the tank top for a lot of this film, yeah.

• 53:50Amanda Dobbins?

  It's really very powerful.

• 53:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 53:54Sean Fennessey?

  Joanne Woodward became pregnant during the movie and miscarried. And this is right when Paul was getting a divorce from his first wife.

• 54:03Sean Fennessey?

  It's an interesting collection of actors, most of whom were not from the American South, but most of whom were from the actor's studio. So in addition to Paul and Joanne, Anthony Ferenciozo, who's the brother, and Lee Remick, who's so young and so beautiful in this movie too. They work together again later in the future as well. Not a big hit, really, really liked by critics. And it kicks off his relationship with Martin Ritt, who I think becomes kind of one of his critical. Critical connectors. I would say for the sake of the purpose, like for the purpose of this exercise, to me, this is a yellow.

• 54:36Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree. I mean, it's not gonna be a green, but we can yell at it.

• 54:38Sean Fennessey?

  It's not gonna be, we'll probably say that a bunch more times throughout this, but because it is Newman and Woodward come together and it's Martin Redd and Newman.

• 54:45Amanda Dobbins?

  And when they're on screen together, you just sit up a little straighter.

• 54:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 54:48Amanda Dobbins?

  It's very exciting.

• 54:50Sean Fennessey?

  Newman also won Best Actor at Cannes for this movie.

• 54:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. So he's on his way.

• 54:54Sean Fennessey?

  He's on his way. This is the movie that is like, here he comes.

• 54:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 54:57Sean Fennessey?

  An important star is on his way. The next film he makes, though, is The Left-Handed Gun, which was based on a teleplay by Gore Vidal, who, the famous novelist, essayist.

• 55:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I remember this now, yeah.

• 55:09Sean Fennessey?

  And Gore Vidal became one of his best friends. He was very, very close with Joanne Woodward and Paul Newman throughout their entire careers. In fact, when you hear Paul Newman speaking about democracy in America, or the lack thereof, you can hear a lot of Gore Vidal's opinions. I love Gore Vidal, one of my favorite writers. I always loved him. And he, I think Newman was a person who was trying to hold on to optimism in the face of the cynicism that someone like Vidal had. The Left-Handed Gun is really just, um, is it Billy the Kid? I want to say it's Billy the Kid. It's William Bonney is the character that he portrays. This movie is just not, it's not a very good Western, unfortunately.

• 55:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Also, apparently Billy the Kid was not left-handed, that that was an assumption made because someone like reversed a photo, I don't know.

• 55:49Sean Fennessey?

  Classic.

• 55:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Phototechnologies.

• 55:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Also, Paul Newman.

• 55:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Or maybe we just can't know. Or maybe it was just that, you know, back then, they just taught people to only use their right hand. So maybe in spirit, he was.

• 56:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Some other issues with the movie. Newman was 33 when he played the part. I think Billy the Kid is 18. That's not ideal. It is, however, it's the directorial debut of Arthur Penn, another one of these critical figures in the new Hollywood. He would go on to make a little bit later Bonnie and Clyde.

• 56:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 56:16Sean Fennessey?

  So then comes Canada Hot Tin Roof.

• 56:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 56:22Sean Fennessey?

  The huge milestone in his career. He gets nominated for an Academy Award. It's his first time doing Tennessee Williams in a film, not the last time. The movie is great, but very flawed because it really changes the play.

• 56:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And soft plays a lot of what's going on with his character.

• 56:42Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 56:42Amanda Dobbins?

  In particular, even though it's implied.

• 56:46Sean Fennessey?

  You can understand it now if you have a working knowledge of the text. I definitely read this play in high school and saw the movie sometime after that. I was like, what is wrong?

• 56:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. Maybe this is why they showed us the movie in high school because they didn't want us to, to read the play because I went to a very restrictive and not progressive school.

• 57:03Sean Fennessey?

  Interesting.

• 57:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 57:04Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. Well, um, I hope you enjoyed the film. As Brick, he's very hot.

• 57:07Amanda Dobbins?

  He's really, really hot.

• 57:08Sean Fennessey?

  Elizabeth Taylor also very hot, throwing herself constantly at Paul Newman.

• 57:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And you know, this does introduce like, you know, impenetrable Paul Newman. And in like many ways, like the, like the most closed off, the most.

• 57:22Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, the repressed heart.

• 57:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. I mean, literally his, his character is called Brick. So, uh, it's, this one's pretty important. Is it going in? Are you yelling?

• 57:31Sean Fennessey?

  It's at a minimum yellow.

• 57:32Amanda Dobbins?

  It's at a minimum yellow.

• 57:33Sean Fennessey?

  First Oscar nomination. He's great. He's great in this part. This, he's kind of does variations on this theme a number of times in his career too. So it feels pretty important in that respect. He's much more in, um, The Long Hot Summer. He's much more passionate, I would say. You know? In this movie, he's so tight.

• 57:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Exactly.

• 57:52Sean Fennessey?

  And he, he plays that tightness again in the future. So let's yellow it for now.

• 57:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 57:55Sean Fennessey?

  Rally Around the Flag Boys is not a film I've seen. It is directed by a great filmmaker, Leo McCary.

• 58:00Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I did watch this. I wanted it to work because this is, this is essentially like a domestic rom com between Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward.

• 58:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 58:09Amanda Dobbins?

  And I can't remember what he does, but she is a stay at home mom who's pretty in board and involved in local politics. And so she wants to prevent a missile base being built nearby. So there, you know, some of their politics, some of their locals have, it's not really played as like a serious, uh, political issue. And somehow Paul Newman has to be like the liaison between whoever he works for and the government. And so he like, he was basically in a lot of situations where he's just kind of like, my crazy wife. Sorry, I don't know. And. My wife. My wife. And so they, and then he is like, maybe has eyes for some, someone else.

• 58:51Amanda Dobbins?

  And so it's not like the happy frantic romantic comedy you want from the two of them. And it's not really a forward thinking look at the, at the role of women in America. Um, and it, it didn't really work. There also wasn't, they didn't even have that much fizz when they're together. I guess, cause they're supposed to be warring.

• 59:11Sean Fennessey?

  So I did buy a copy of this, but I did not watch it. So it's not worth watching?

• 59:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Uh, I don't know.

• 59:17Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 59:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I, you know, I, I was like, oh, a romantic comedy of sorts, or at least a comedy with two people who at this, who really have the hots for each other. Maybe it'll be exciting and it wasn't that good.

• 59:29Sean Fennessey?

  It's red. Uh, The Young Philadelphians, this is a film I did watch.

• 59:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I did.

• 59:33Sean Fennessey?

  Another legal drama.

• 59:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 59:35Sean Fennessey?

  Kind of an odd duck of a movie in terms of the way that it's shaped. Um, it also stars Barbara Rush and Robert Vaughn, who was nominated for an Academy Award. One of the first times he was on, seen on screen. Newman didn't want to do the movie.

• 59:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 59:47Sean Fennessey?

  Didn't like the movie. Had a hard time making the movie and it didn't really do that well.

• 59:53Amanda Dobbins?

  What happened? I, I watched this. It's in black and white and he gives a lot of speeches. Is he a lawyer?

• 59:59Sean Fennessey?

  No, he's like a construction foreman. Um, but he is the kind of like orphan. His mother is a very powerful figure who like rejected a powerful family and.

• 1:00:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, right, right, right, right, right. And so then he has to like, he deals with the family. So that's why they're like, it's, it's like a lot of standing around in drawing rooms.

• 1:00:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:00:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Being like, this is how I feel.

• 1:00:23Sean Fennessey?

  He made a lot of movies that are like this and the next movie is like this too. It's another, it's a deep melodrama shot in CinemaScope. It should be great. It's called From the Terror. So just for the record, The Young Philadelphians is red. From the Terrorists from 1960, which I just watched yesterday for the first time. It's another romantic drama. It's Paul and Joanne. Um, it's about the estranged son of a factory owner who marries into a prestigious family and moves to New York and. It's kind of a love triangle movie, which is a little close to Paul and Joanne's life.

• 1:00:58Amanda Dobbins?

  There, well, there are several of those. There aren't very many movies where they're just like hot for each other and then it works out.

• 1:01:06Sean Fennessey?

  It's true. There's, there's, there's storminess in the way that they portray their relationship all the time on screen. And the movie is, it looks beautiful. And like Myrna Loy plays Paul Newman's mom in the movie and

• 1:01:20Sean Fennessey?

  it's directed by Mark Robson, who was like a studio hand and made a couple of cool movies over the years, especially Val Luton movies in the 40s. But it's like, if Douglas Circa directed this movie, it might've been an all time classic. And it's like in slightly less skilled hands. And so it's just kind of a dud. So it's red.

• 1:01:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:38Sean Fennessey?

  Fair?

• 1:01:38Amanda Dobbins?

  You did text me while watching it, just to say that Joanne Woodward is absolutely throwing heat in it, which is true.

• 1:01:43Sean Fennessey?

  I mean, her, her performance and her beauty is so striking at this time in her career. And she has like a, you know, she's considered a great beauty, but she has kind of an unusual beauty. And

• 1:01:53Amanda Dobbins?

  It's always changing also.

• 1:01:54Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. She changes her hair in every movie and, and like she'll have scars on her face in certain, like she has a very, she was a chameleon as an actor, but she is so striking in this movie. 1960 Exodus, um, this is one of the, like the big, like, uh, honking ducks of his career, in my opinion. It's a three and a half hour historical epic about the, um, the founding of Israel essentially. And today it's widely considered like a Zionist piece of propaganda. At the time it was made, it was considered like a big fancy awards film. Otto Preminger directed it. Newman was half Jewish. Uh, the screenplay was written by Dalton Trumbo, legendary screenwriter. But it's just kind of a slog and it's kind of a dull historical drama and doesn't really play

• 1:02:38Sean Fennessey?

  very well at all to modern audiences. Um, even though at the time it was like Paul Newman is the star of the most important film of the year. Like it had that energy about it. I didn't really like rewatching it. I did see it some time ago, but it's just not that great.

• 1:02:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't make it through this one.

• 1:02:52Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:02:52Amanda Dobbins?

  This was one of the ones where I was like, I started it and then I got it. And I was like, I don't think this is going in the Hall of Fame.

• 1:02:59Sean Fennessey?

  And then one year later, 1961, The Hustler.

• 1:03:04Sean Fennessey?

  So this is a movie about Fast Eddie Felsen, a pool hustler and a decaying man who makes a lot of bad decisions in his life and who's

• 1:03:13Amanda Dobbins?

  A very young decaying man.

• 1:03:16Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, again, like, there's a kind of subterranean psychology going on in this character where you can you can kind of surmise what's wrong with him and the way that he expresses his frustration and sadness. But it's not the kind of movie where he like sits down on the psychiatrist couch and is like, "Well, my mom was mean to me and my dad threw me down the stairs and that's why blah, blah, blah."

• 1:03:40Sean Fennessey?

  But it's directed by Robert Rossin in this black and white, hyper-realistic style. It feels like you're watching something that is really happening, which is unusual for movies at this time. And Newman is both like beautiful and pathetic. And I think he's really good at that balance between somebody who's kind of coming apart, even though it seems like he should have the world in the palm of his hands. It's one of his signature roles. It's not the last time he played this role either.

• 1:04:04Amanda Dobbins?

  So, as I said, we have been scrambling to do a lot of research for this and watching a lot of movies and, you know, some are great and some are not so great. And I was really cramming at the end to get as much as I could. And then this morning, I was like, I need something, it's like to remind me why, like, Paul Newman is Paul Newman. I need something, you know, from the early days, like, you know, Cool Hand Luke is seared in my brain, so I don't need to. So I went back and I rewatched The Hustler. And I didn't, I didn't have time to watch the whole thing, but I rewatched parts of it just to get that sense of this, like, beautiful, like, very alive, very, both like confident and in total denial.

• 1:04:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Just like magical person who totally holds the screen. And he's charming and he's stupid and you're rooting for him and you're screaming at him, being like, "What are you doing?" And he's a bad person and he makes bad decisions and you just, like, can't look away.

• 1:05:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, part of what's so great about the movie is it does this thing that so many good sports movies do where the star gets overconfident and makes a huge mistake. And just before he makes it, you're like, don't do, no, don't Minnesota Fats, don't play him, don't play him in that way. What are you, you can't possibly, you want to believe that he can do it and you know that he can't because you're only at minute 42 of the movie and you're like, we've got a long way to go here as this guy's life falls apart. Um, this was a reunion with Piper Laurie after Until They Sail. They're wonderful together in this movie. Newman was nominated for an Academy Award. This film was nominated for eight Oscars. It won for black and white art direction and cinematography. It's gorgeous. To me, it is the first green of our list.

• 1:05:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Agree. Yeah, no question.

• 1:05:48Sean Fennessey?

  This episode of The Big Picture is brought to you by Amazon Prime. What pairs with a good comedy? The cozy blanket arriving with Prime. What pairs with a nail biting thriller? Snacks arriving with Prime. What pairs with big game on Prime Video? That new couch arriving with Prime. Whatever feeling you're after, Prime helps bring it to life with great entertainment and fast shipping that delivers what the moment calls for. From streaming to fast shipping, it's on Prime. This episode is brought to you by LinkedIn Ads. Ever invest in something that seemed incredible at first, but didn't live up to the hype? Marketers know that feeling. They optimize for the numbers that look great, impressions, reach and reacts. But when they don't show revenue, well, that's a not so great conversation with the CFO. LinkedIn has a word for that, bull spend. Instead, why not invest in what looks good to your

• 1:06:32Sean Fennessey?

  CFO? LinkedIn Ads generates the highest ROAS of all major ad networks. Reach the right buyers with LinkedIn Ads. You can target by company, industry, job title and more. So cut the bull spend, advertise on LinkedIn, the network that works for you. Spend $250 on your first campaign on LinkedIn Ads and get a $250 credit for the next one. Just go to LinkedIn.com slash the big picture. That's LinkedIn.com slash the big picture. Terms and conditions apply. This episode is brought to you by State Farm. There's nothing better than having friends who support whatever you're into, like rewatching a director's entire catalog in the lead up to their latest release. And like those friends, State Farm is there to help you feel supported by helping you choose the coverage you need. With so many coverage options, it's nice

• 1:07:16Sean Fennessey?

  knowing you have help finding what fits for you. So you can check coverage off the list and spend more time debating movie rankings. Go online at StateFarm.com or use the easily accessible app to get help from one of their local agents. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. 1961 Paris Blues.

• 1:07:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Powerful, just powerful.

• 1:07:35Sean Fennessey?

  A little bit of a forgotten movie.

• 1:07:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:37Sean Fennessey?

  I would like to use our platform to make people aware of how special this movie is. This is a reunion with Martin Writ. It's also a reunion with Joanne Woodward. It's the one and only time he worked with Sidney Poitier. And Diane Carroll also stars in this movie. It's about two American jazz musicians living in Paris and playing music and falling in love.

• 1:07:58Sean Fennessey?

  Shot gorgeously in black and white. Duke Ellington does the music. And long stretches of the film are just people gazing upon Paul Newman playing jazz trombone. And then walking the streets of Paris. This movie is phenomenal.

• 1:08:13Amanda Dobbins?

  I, it's, it's the one where I was like, I can't believe this exists. I can't believe I'm just hearing about this. Never seen this before. I can't believe everyone looks like this. I can't believe that I'm just watching the most beautiful people in the world. Like fake play jazz in jazz clubs in the, in like the late 50s Paris. I, it's incredible. This is like, this is our, if it's not green, it's blue.

• 1:08:37Sean Fennessey?

  So I, it's the signature blue and perhaps perfect for Paris blues. I don't know that the actual performance that Newman gives is like among his best.

• 1:08:47Amanda Dobbins?

  It doesn't matter.

• 1:08:47Sean Fennessey?

  It's just the movie is a mood. It is an incredible mood.

• 1:08:50Amanda Dobbins?

  And he gets the mood, right?

• 1:08:52Sean Fennessey?

  He does, he does. He's very good in the mood.

• 1:08:54Amanda Dobbins?

  The scene when he, like early on, before he meets Joanne Woodward, when he's in the kitchen with the proprietor of, I don't know whether it's his like landlord or she runs the jazz club or both.

• 1:09:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. And she's also magnetized to him.

• 1:09:10Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. And it's like, are we gonna, you know, have.

• 1:09:15Sean Fennessey?

  Are we gonna fuck?

• 1:09:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, exactly. But like, I don't remember. It's like, are we gonna have scrambled eggs or something? Like, I don't remember about the actual, the, the, it's, you're just kind of like, what is going? And he's just kind of floating around that kitchen island. And I was like, this is, this is cinema to me.

• 1:09:29Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, well, Ritt's camera is just like, does such a great job of doing that thing that you see in A Complete Unknown where he's just, people are gazing upon a musician as though they are pure sexuality. But he's playing trombone. It's such a funny thing. There's a great Pavel Pavlikowski movie called Ida that came out maybe 10 years ago.

• 1:09:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:09:45Sean Fennessey?

  That is a, is a black and white film that is about jazz in Europe. And if you like Ida, highly recommend Paris Blues. Let's make this, let's make this a blue.

• 1:09:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:09:56Sean Fennessey?

  Neither Sidney Poitier nor Paul Newman could really play jazz.

• 1:09:59Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:09:59Sean Fennessey?

  Notable.

• 1:10:01Amanda Dobbins?

  You know.

• 1:10:02Sean Fennessey?

  Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong basically made fun of them on the set of this movie. 1962 Sweet Bird of Youth.

• 1:10:09Sean Fennessey?

  This is another Tennessee Williams adaptation. I did watch this. Did you watch this?

• 1:10:11Amanda Dobbins?

  I did as well. This is a, this is a Tennessee Williams adaptation, another one that gets dramatically sanitized.

• 1:10:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:10:17Amanda Dobbins?

  From stage to screen.

• 1:10:18Sean Fennessey?

  Spoiler alert, at the end of the stage play, the character that Newman plays, who's a sort of an aspiring actor, who becomes a gigolo to an aging actress. Is castrated. He's castrated in dramatic fashion and it is like the most hat on a hat Tennessee Williams dying masculinity metaphor you've ever seen in your life. In the movie, that's not what happens. In the movie, he basically just gets beat up. And is, you know, wounded. It's a little overdrawn, this movie. I think it's flawed. It has some things in it that are interesting. But it's so pales in comparison to Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and same director.

• 1:10:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:55Sean Fennessey?

  Same source material, same, you know.

• 1:10:58Amanda Dobbins?

  And there's not really even that much for him to, to do performance wise. He's just kind of the pretty dressing and like a guy, you know, trying to make the best of a situation, but which we've, we've seen before, but.

• 1:11:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's definitely, it's definitely a hustler for sure. And he kind of excelled at playing these kinds of hustler types, but the material is just a little bit more thin. So that's going to be red, I would say. I mentioned Hemingway's Adventures of a Young Man from 62. He has a very small role in this movie as a battered boxer called The Battler. And this is the first performance of his, I don't know if you got a chance to see this, that is like, I'm gonna try something.

• 1:11:35Sean Fennessey?

  And in this movie, he tries talking like a big lug who might even have a brain injury.

• 1:11:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, I didn't, I didn't see this one out.

• 1:11:41Sean Fennessey?

  It's really weird. He's not the star. He kind of shambles into the movie about 40 minutes in.

• 1:11:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:11:47Sean Fennessey?

  And he gets this kind of set piece where this man who's left his home, the story is sort of roughly based on the experiences that Hemingway had in his life. And the ways in which he became a young man by like kind of traversing across the land of America and finding himself. But it's also like done in this very kind of fancy schmancy on sound stages, set style Hollywood production. So it doesn't have that, like the exterior photography is beautiful, but every scene is shot with like fake trees. So it's very odd movie.

• 1:12:17Sean Fennessey?

  Newman, you can tell at this stage it was, it's an important movie because you can tell he's kind of like, I'm getting bored playing the same guy over and over again. Sweet Bird of Youth, The Hustler, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, like I'm playing a lot of guys who are like, I bet I can get one over on you. And this is an attempt to break out of that a little bit. The film's not successful, so it's going to be red, but that leads us to HUD.

• 1:12:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:12:37Sean Fennessey?

  So another movie with Martin Writ, very important to one another, these, these guys. This is a, based on a novel by Larry McMurtry called Horseman Pass, which I've not read. I wonder if Chris has read that book. One of the early Larry McMurtry novels. And it's about, the book is different. The book is from the perspective of this young nephew.

• 1:13:00Sean Fennessey?

  The film shifts more to HUD's perspective, who is the son of a rancher. And the rancher is aging and they've bought this batch of cattle and they have foot and mouth disease. And they have to figure out what to do with these cattle, whether or not to kill them and to move on and try to get more cattle or to try to push through. That becomes kind of a central metaphor for like this generation of spoiled and soiled young men who are selfish and venal and are only interested in what they want and pleasuring themselves over common decency. What's good for your family? What's good for your fellow man?

• 1:13:36Sean Fennessey?

  Again, another extraordinary black and white movie that Martin Redd made. James Wong Howe shot it. This movie is often cited as some of the greatest black and white cinematography in film history. Howe is often cited as one of the greatest cinematographers ever, in part because this is a black and white movie that is not a noir, that has nighttime photography that is amazing. Like, if you look at the way that Newman looks.

• 1:13:58Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, it looks so good, including a scene where Paul Newman wrestles a pig.

• 1:14:01Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, that's true. That part is great.

• 1:14:03Amanda Dobbins?

  It's incredible. And I was talking about, like, there are many other physical things that he has to do in his movies. And he's just, like, wrestling a pig, and he looks amazing. And it's like at a rodeo at night. And it, like, it is, like, balletic and beautiful. Yeah, it's, it's amazing.

• 1:14:17Sean Fennessey?

  This is a great film. What better metaphor for America than trying to wrestle a pig?

• 1:14:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:23Sean Fennessey?

  And again, I talked about how, you know, this was a real anti-hero, really like a bad person. Patricia Neal's in this film. She won an Academy Award for her work as Alma, the sort of like housekeeper slash mother slash sexual dynamo.

• 1:14:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:35Sean Fennessey?

  Her, I'd love to do an episode about her. She's fascinating. Her whole, she's married to a old doll for 30 years. She'd lived quite a life.

• 1:14:44Sean Fennessey?

  And this movie, I think, is a little bit in conversation with Giant, the George Stevens movie that I mentioned a couple of times during Kills the Fire Moon discussion. That's St. James Dean. It was also about, kind of like, the changing America, passing from one generation of stolid, hardworking men to another generation of men who are like, "I want to do what I want to do. I want to fuck who I want to fuck." And...

• 1:15:07Amanda Dobbins?

  But the other interesting thing about this movie is that I think it was made with the understanding that you just explained of, you know, the older generation and decency and this younger group of people, and Paul Newman's character, who just, like... Is a bad dude, like is a bad guy. Like we're, you know, we're talking about fraud and attempted rape.

• 1:15:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:15:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, just like, but, and the movie is made with that understanding of like, of him as a character. And then the response to it was just like, oh my God, Paul Newman as Hud is like the coolest person. People were rooting for him and even the makers of the, the filmmakers were like, we didn't expect that to happen. Cause there's, he doesn't do anything. He doesn't do anything that you, to make you root for him or that you should like him. And it's, it's a little bit Paul Newman. It's a little bit like a reflection of the time and the young, a younger generation of people. Uh, and how they're responding like to the setup, but some of it is just, he is so magnetic, even as he's doing truly awful things.

• 1:16:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Some fascinating context for this movie. At the time, Life Magazine described the Hud character as likeable, smart, and with the potential to measure up to his tough, honorable father. It's a pretty strong misread of the movie.

• 1:16:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:16:24Sean Fennessey?

  Newman had a quote in response to that. He said, "We thought the last thing people would do was accept Hud as a heroic character. His amorality just went over the audience's head. All they saw was this Western heroic individual." Which I think gives you a lot of insight into essentially the generation to come, which we thought at the time was tremendously progressive, but we later learned was tremendously selfish.

• 1:16:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:16:44Sean Fennessey?

  And I think this is a, this is a fascinating quote in The Last Movie Star as Paul Schrader describes the, the, the performance like this. He says, "I think Newman gives probably the most important performance in the history of cinema. It's the first time that an American bad guy had been presented without excuse or remorse, and no attempt is made to make him likeable, and he has no apology or change of heart at the end, and you can't take your eyes off him. You think he's the coolest thing you've ever seen." Now that says a lot about Paul Schrader, of course, but it also says a lot about the audience. It's, the film is so embraced. And it's not meant to be a cautionary tale. And it's like, if you like The Sopranos, you know, if you like the films of Martin Scorsese, if you like the films of these kind of like figures who are really tormented and really awful.

• 1:17:26Sean Fennessey?

  This is really like a, uh, a breeding ground, I would say for a lot of that stuff. It's definitely green.

• 1:17:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Absolutely.

• 1:17:34Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, very important movie in his career.

• 1:17:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Do you feel like it?

• 1:17:39Amanda Dobbins?

  It's a movie that I had seen before and that I revisited, but do you feel like it's been handed down in the way that even like, I mean, definitely not Cool Hand Luke, but like The Hustler and some of the other.

• 1:17:51Sean Fennessey?

  No, no, I think when I was in college and in film school, they showed it to us.

• 1:17:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:57Sean Fennessey?

  Because at that time, it was considered like one of these kind of signals of the new Hollywood to come.

• 1:18:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Got it.

• 1:18:01Sean Fennessey?

  You know, like this is where movies were going.

• 1:18:04Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:18:04Sean Fennessey?

  But I don't think that in the Letterboxd era, it has been conferred. And I'll tell you, not to keep circling back to physical media, but this film is not available on Blu-ray in America, and it's one of the most important American movies ever made. I don't know why that is. I did notice that an Australian company is putting it out on Blu-ray like next month.

• 1:18:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh.

• 1:18:20Sean Fennessey?

  That indicates usually that like, the studio has decided.

• 1:18:23Amanda Dobbins?

  There's a movement, okay.

• 1:18:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, that it's gonna, it's gonna come out at some point.

• 1:18:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:18:26Sean Fennessey?

  But this beautiful movie not being available.

• 1:18:29Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not available in 4K or Blu-ray?

• 1:18:31Sean Fennessey?

  Blu-ray.

• 1:18:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:18:32Sean Fennessey?

  There's foreign Blu-rays, but there's no US Blu-ray, as far as I know. You can only get it on DVD.

• 1:18:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:18:36Sean Fennessey?

  Is it a rights issue? I have no fucking idea. Very, very strange.

• 1:18:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I think you're about to get like five HUD Blu-rays in there.

• 1:18:41Sean Fennessey?

  I hope so. Send them along.

• 1:18:45Sean Fennessey?

  1963, A New Kind of Love. I haven't seen this.

• 1:18:47Amanda Dobbins?

  I did watch this. This, in the documentary, is positioned as, there's a great story from one of the Woodward Newman children that's like, Paul read this, said, "This is the worst script that I've ever read." And then Joanne says, "I've stayed home and I've raised your children and I want to do this, this movie where I get to go and like, wear pretty costumes and do all these things and you say no." And then Paul says, "I take it back."

• 1:19:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:19:09Amanda Dobbins?

  It's the best thing.

• 1:19:09Sean Fennessey?

  This was sort of Amanda Goes to Venice, but for, but the movie.

• 1:19:12Amanda Dobbins?

  But basically, so obviously I watched it immediately. I, it's not very good. It is a romantic comedy. There is a great makeover scene for Joanne Woodward and it's like, and it's like an arch makeover, you know, it's, it's a setup, but she, he's a newspaper columnist. She is, she works for an apartment store.

• 1:19:30Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:19:30Amanda Dobbins?

  And then they all wind up in Paris, though I honestly couldn't tell you whether they actually were in Paris.

• 1:19:36Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:19:36Amanda Dobbins?

  And somehow she gets confused for a call girl, like an expensive one.

• 1:19:43Sean Fennessey?

  Sure, as you do.

• 1:19:44Amanda Dobbins?

  And then. And hijinks ensue and he's like writing about her and then also her boss is in love with someone. I don't know. And then at the end, it works out, but there's like a dream sequence where they get married while he's dressed as a football player. It's, I wouldn't say everything comes together.

• 1:20:02Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:20:03Amanda Dobbins?

  But I did like the makeover sequence and it, you know, it was like good, good old school. They, they put a lot of, the costume department and the production team really came through.

• 1:20:12Sean Fennessey?

  Was this like the 27 dresses of 1963?

• 1:20:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, sure, sure.

• 1:20:19Sean Fennessey?

  This is what I do. These are the kind of comps I do.

• 1:20:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I was just thinking, I haven't seen 27 dresses in a very long time. It's not my favorite.

• 1:20:26Sean Fennessey?

  Nor mine.

• 1:20:27Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:27Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, okay. Red for a new kind of love. The prize is a movie I have seen, but not in some time. I think you just watched this, right?

• 1:20:32Amanda Dobbins?

  I did watch it. I liked this one.

• 1:20:34Sean Fennessey?

  It's pretty cool.

• 1:20:35Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think it's going in, but I enjoyed it.

• 1:20:37Sean Fennessey?

  It's kind of a thriller and kind of a comedy.

• 1:20:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:41Sean Fennessey?

  A bit of a strange genre mix about, it's about a novelist who goes to the Nobel Prize awards. And a man, a scientist who's receiving an award, played by Edward G. Robinson, the Newman character thinks is an imposter. Right? Isn't that?

• 1:20:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I think he actually does get abducted and then they like replace him.

• 1:21:01Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:21:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:21:02Sean Fennessey?

  Right.

• 1:21:02Amanda Dobbins?

  And so.

• 1:21:03Sean Fennessey?

  But he's the one who like susses that out.

• 1:21:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So he becomes the detective, even though he's also like winning the Nobel Prize.

• 1:21:11Sean Fennessey?

  For literature.

• 1:21:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:12Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:21:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Which, I mean, you know, Paul Newman could do a lot of things, but you know, the.

• 1:21:17Sean Fennessey?

  What do you mean? Are there no beautiful novelists? Has no beautiful man ever won the Nobel Prize for literature?

• 1:21:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Any, like, anyone that cool.

• 1:21:26Sean Fennessey?

  That's actually a category in when you're delineating the awards is how ugly is this person? And so you're right, Paul Newman would never win. Not a huge movie in his career. There is a lovely Blu-ray. How is this movie on Blu-ray and not, not HUD? Not a success, not really a box office success either. So the prize is red. What a way to go. I also did not watch. You told me you did watch this.

• 1:21:45Amanda Dobbins?

  I think I did. Hold on.

• 1:21:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, but this is like, Newman has like a small role.

• 1:21:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Right. So, oh, this is fun. Okay. So it's Shirley MacLaine. I mean, I wish you'd watch it. Just the premise is that Shirley MacLaine is at the end of her life and is recounting all of her marriages. Um, because

• 1:22:03Sean Fennessey?

  Including Robert Mitchum, Dean Martin, and Gene Kelly.

• 1:22:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Um, and the reason that she wants to do this is because she wants to give her money away to the IRS or something, which is like, don't give your money to the IRS.

• 1:22:15Sean Fennessey?

  She wants to give it to the IRS?

• 1:22:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know. I don't know. It was weird. So Paul Newman is

• 1:22:21Sean Fennessey?

  Did the IRS fund this movie?

• 1:22:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Probably with the CIA. So Paul Newman is one of the husbands, like I would say, like, thirties, and he is a, he's an artist and he builds this painting machine that, um, splatters paint and then ultimately it kills him. So that's, I mean, spoiler alert, I guess. Well, they're all dead. That's how she is the widow that inherits all the thing. It's the premise of the movie. So the machine's pretty cool. He is very scruffy in it. Um, and is like playing a little more bohemian than, than maybe I buy from Paul Newman. So this is red, but I watched it.

• 1:23:03Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, okay. It's red. 1964, The Outrage. Not a film I would recommend people watch, but it is an interesting artifact in this career. It is a reunion with Martin Wirth. They're coming off this incredible success of HUD, Paris Blues. They decided they want to remake Akira Kurosawa's Rashomon. And, but they're gonna make it a story about white guys and a Mexican. And Paul Newman's gonna play the Mexican. He's a blue eyed Mexican, named, I believe, Juan Carrasco. And this movie is terrible. It's pointless. It actually looks pretty good. Um, the photography is really nice, as it is in most Martin Wirth movies, but, uh,

• 1:23:48Sean Fennessey?

  Newman's performance is dreadful and not just because it's culturally insensitive. It's actually quite bad and it's a little bit curious. He's again, this is him kind of like feeling around in the dark, trying, trying things that maybe we would not be trying in 2025.

• 1:24:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:24:04Sean Fennessey?

  Probably not even in 1985.

• 1:24:07Sean Fennessey?

  And it's not meaningfully different enough from Rashomon to necessitate its existence. But you know, it's, it's a story of, you know, rape and a murder and the told through three different perspectives, told through the perspective of someone who participated, someone who witnessed it, and then a third mysterious figure. And it's just okay. It is a very early William Shatner movie performance. Edward G. Robinson is also in this movie. Like it's just one of those movies where like, if you've seen Rashomon, why do we need this movie?

• 1:24:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:35Sean Fennessey?

  And I also don't know any other person in the universe who has seen this movie. It has.

• 1:24:39Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I skipped it.

• 1:24:40Sean Fennessey?

  It has been like mothballed.

• 1:24:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:42Sean Fennessey?

  Not a hit and it's red. Lady L I have not seen.

• 1:24:44Amanda Dobbins?

  I have.

• 1:24:45Sean Fennessey?

  This is a Sophia Loren movie.

• 1:24:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. Another woman of note recounting her loves at the end of her life. But then it turns out to be a period piece. And so Paul Newman is like wearing like capes and stuff.

• 1:25:01Sean Fennessey?

  Oh.

• 1:25:02Amanda Dobbins?

  Which is just not where you want to be if you're.

• 1:25:03Sean Fennessey?

  Back to the silver chalice for him.

• 1:25:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, it's more, I, I wish I could tell you he's, there's like a count, like 1700s, 1800s. I couldn't really tell you again, I wouldn't say that like specificity of place or time.

• 1:25:16Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:25:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Is one of.

• 1:25:17Sean Fennessey?

  Not historically accurate drama.

• 1:25:19Amanda Dobbins?

  It's, it's one of Lady L's attributes, but, and then he's like, he's a young guy and an old person. So in addition to the goatee or whatever, you know, costume drama facial hair he has going, then he has some aging.

• 1:25:37Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I wouldn't say he has a ton of chemistry with Sophia Loren and it was weird. I don't recommend it. It's red.

• 1:25:44Sean Fennessey?

  Red, 1966 Harper. Now.

• 1:25:49Sean Fennessey?

  I really like this movie a lot. This is a favorite of mine. I did not re-watch it because I've seen it at least three or four times in my life. It is an early William Goldman script. It's based on a Ross McDonald novel called The Moving Target. It's a classic detective story. One of the things that jumps out in my, Lauren Bacall co-stars in the movie. One of the things that jumps out in my mind is a young Pamela Tiffin dancing on a diving board

• 1:26:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 1:26:12Sean Fennessey?

  in a bikini.

• 1:26:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:13Sean Fennessey?

  I'll never forget.

• 1:26:14Amanda Dobbins?

  In Palm Springs.

• 1:26:14Sean Fennessey?

  That will never escape my mind.

• 1:26:15Amanda Dobbins?

  It's really, and, and she looks great.

• 1:26:17Sean Fennessey?

  One thing I'd like to say about that is, as a point of aspiration, I remember in my twenties reading about Pamela Tiffin. She went on to marry Clay Felker, who was the editor in chief of New York Magazine. And I was like, is this something you can do?

• 1:26:27Amanda Dobbins?

  That's definitely what happens to magazine editors.

• 1:26:30Sean Fennessey?

  I was like, who is this man? This is not the last time Newman would play this character. He makes a sequel in the seventies. I don't think this is a movie that goes in the Hall of Fame, and there's certainly some things about it that feel very 1966.

• 1:26:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:45Sean Fennessey?

  You know, culturally, but it's a fun watch if you like detective movies. So it would be a blue for me.

• 1:26:51Amanda Dobbins?

  You want, you want this to be your blue?

• 1:26:52Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:26:53Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. I mean, I really liked it. I had never seen it before. And it does have, it's like LA set, there are palm trees, you know, Lauren Bacall is just like Lauren Bacall-ing.

• 1:27:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:27:06Amanda Dobbins?

  To 1,000.

• 1:27:08Sean Fennessey?

  This is also the first movie where he dips his head into a bowl full of ice cubes in the morning.

• 1:27:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:14Sean Fennessey?

  Which is something he actually did in his real life because he drank so much and it brought the swelling down.

• 1:27:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Can I tell you something about myself?

• 1:27:20Sean Fennessey?

  You do this.

• 1:27:21Amanda Dobbins?

  When I was pregnant, before every single dumb video recording we had to do.

• 1:27:25Sean Fennessey?

  You dipped your face in ice cubes?

• 1:27:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, I did.

• 1:27:27Sean Fennessey?

  Is it because of the heavy drinking that I did?

• 1:27:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, exactly. That's, that was what I added to my pregnancy regimen. No, I was so swollen because I was pregnant.

• 1:27:33Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, okay.

• 1:27:34Amanda Dobbins?

  And he had.

• 1:27:35Sean Fennessey?

  You looked great every time.

• 1:27:36Amanda Dobbins?

  He made me be on YouTube.

• 1:27:37Sean Fennessey?

  I made you?

• 1:27:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:38Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:27:38Amanda Dobbins?

  It's okay, I did it.

• 1:27:40Sean Fennessey?

  Same year, Harper is not, not.

• 1:27:43Amanda Dobbins?

  It's good, it's your blue for now.

• 1:27:44Sean Fennessey?

  It's my blue.

• 1:27:44Amanda Dobbins?

  Are we allowed to change our blues?

• 1:27:46Sean Fennessey?

  Maybe.

• 1:27:46Amanda Dobbins?

  And we can like, we can like, trade them?

• 1:27:48Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, we've only got like 15 more movies, so.

• 1:27:51Sean Fennessey?

  1966, again, Torn Curtain.

• 1:27:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:27:53Sean Fennessey?

  This is his one movie with Hitchcock.

• 1:27:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:27:54Sean Fennessey?

  On paper, political spy thriller starring Paul Newman and Julie Andrews in the mid 60s from Hitchcock. This should be the best movie ever made.

• 1:28:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's not.

• 1:28:04Sean Fennessey?

  It's not.

• 1:28:05Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not, it's pretty boring.

• 1:28:06Sean Fennessey?

  It's pretty disappointing.

• 1:28:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:28:08Sean Fennessey?

  And this is a theme that will recur, where a lot of times Newman is like, ah, it's so a remake of Rashomon. You're playing a bandit, that should be so cool. And it's not cool. Like, he does, he missteps quite often.

• 1:28:17Amanda Dobbins?

  It takes, like, there are your Hitchcockian twists and turns, but they take forever. It just goes on, you know, there's no tension in any of them. There is a scene with Newman and Julie Andrews like nuzzling in bed pretty early on in the movie, and you're just like, what am I watching?

• 1:28:34Sean Fennessey?

  No heat.

• 1:28:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:35Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:28:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Not with, with respect, Julie Andrews has many other skills.

• 1:28:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, well, she's not a particularly sexual performer.

• 1:28:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Teaching people how to be princesses, but.

• 1:28:43Sean Fennessey?

  That's true. Hitchcock didn't like Newman, and Newman didn't like Hitchcock.

• 1:28:47Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:28:47Sean Fennessey?

  Hitchcock didn't like very many actors, and they didn't really like him very much.

• 1:28:49Amanda Dobbins?

  That's a flex, though, just to be like, I don't, I mean, I know most people didn't, don't like him as, he wasn't pleasing to work with, but, you know, I don't like Hitchcock. I don't, it's, it's.

• 1:28:59Sean Fennessey?

  No, I think he was hard on some young women.

• 1:29:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:29:01Sean Fennessey?

  I think.

• 1:29:01Amanda Dobbins?

  That, that I know.

• 1:29:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. Male actors, a little, you know, I think Cary Grant had nicer things to say about him, but, you know, this, this movie is notable in part because a young Steven Spielberg snuck onto the soundstage of this movie all as being filmed, just a few years before he started working in serious television for Universal, and learned a lot, seemingly, watching Hitchcock work, block a scene and set up. It's not going in.

• 1:29:23Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:29:24Sean Fennessey?

  1967, Ombre.

• 1:29:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:29:26Sean Fennessey?

  Now, you didn't really enjoy watching the Westerns. I kind of like this movie.

• 1:29:29Amanda Dobbins?

  I, did I, I, I do think I saw this one, I watched all of them.

• 1:29:33Sean Fennessey?

  I have a real fondness for the Martin Writ movies.

• 1:29:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you so much, Wikipedia, I Googled ombre film, ombre, parentheses, Spanish for man.

• 1:29:41Sean Fennessey?

  Man.

• 1:29:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Great, okay.

• 1:29:42Sean Fennessey?

  What's the, is there a film called Man? That's gonna be my first film.

• 1:29:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, I did. Yeah, I watched this one. Okay. I couldn't remember which Western.

• 1:29:49Sean Fennessey?

  It's a movie about a white guy raised by Native Americans.

• 1:29:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:29:51Sean Fennessey?

  Sort of the dances with wolves of its time. Um, and this man portrayed by Newman has to defend passengers of a stagecoach that's held up by a gang. And so it becomes kind of an extended standoff movie. Long third act in which he is kind of attempting to protect these people, these passengers in this kind of safe house at the top of a hill. I thought it was pretty, pretty sharp for a Western of its time for kind of like a modernist Western. It's not, not going in and Newman had some regrets about it because there's clearly something kind of insensitive about telling the story of the Native American experience through the eyes of the one white guy who kind of sort of got to have that experience. Um, a movie that would not be made today.

• 1:30:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:30:33Sean Fennessey?

  But it's not a bad Western by any means, but we can make that a red. And that takes us to Cool Hand Luke.

• 1:30:40Amanda Dobbins?

  The greenest of the greens.

• 1:30:41Sean Fennessey?

  Is this the most iconic?

• 1:30:44Amanda Dobbins?

  It is to me.

• 1:30:45Sean Fennessey?

  You think so? Okay.

• 1:30:47Amanda Dobbins?

  And don't you, it has, cause it's got the, the 50 eggs.

• 1:30:51Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:30:51Amanda Dobbins?

  It's got the, the banjo scene.

• 1:30:54Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:30:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, it's got, obviously, um, what we have here is a failure to communicate.

• 1:31:00Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:31:01Amanda Dobbins?

  So, and it, and it has the ending, which like I, you know, I, can we spoil Cool Hand Luke?

• 1:31:06Sean Fennessey?

  Sure.

• 1:31:07Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, if you haven't watched Cool Hand Luke, I don't know why you're listening this far in a Paul Newman podcast, but please skip forward. But I, Zach, my husband always talks about seeing this young and being like, wait, he dies? Like, what do you mean? And there is something about this character and, and you're every, you're rooting for him. He gets you so on his side with very few words and with, you know, a lot, a lot of issues buried deep inside.

• 1:31:35Sean Fennessey?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:31:36Amanda Dobbins?

  And And that I guess it's just like an early example of anti-hero, but also not really anti-hero, but just the hero it doesn't work out for.

• 1:31:47Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, tragedy. Yeah, yeah, it is. It is a it is a heroic tragedy, but also the hero is a deeply complicated figure. He's living on a prison farm and he represents something about rebellion, but you don't totally understand what it is he's rebelling against other than just the kind of strictures of the society that we exist inside of. As you said, like it has a number of incredibly iconic scenes, the hard-boiled eggs in particular, what we've got here is a failure to communicate. The Lalo Schifrin score to this movie is incredible, so memorable that dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun. It's a great movie. In The Last Movie stars Ethan Hawke says Denzel, Malcolm X, De Niro, Raging Bull, Paul Newman, Cool Hand

• 1:32:28Sean Fennessey?

  Luke. That's what's in my mind in terms of the iconography of American acting. And it's a pretty interesting comparison, you know, and you could say Brando in Streetcar, you could add a couple of other figures to that. But it is in that lineage.

• 1:32:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but even Brando in Streetcar, like the enduring images of of those performances, Brando, it's like screaming Stella at the top of his lungs. And even like, you know, I said 50 eggs, but he's really just like lying there through a lot of that scene. It is very funny. It is a very like recessed performance.

• 1:33:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:33:04Amanda Dobbins?

  And and it is when you say Paul Newman, the first thing that comes to mind for me.

• 1:33:09Sean Fennessey?

  Green. 1968.

• 1:33:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Way green.

• 1:33:12Sean Fennessey?

  The 1968, The Secret War of Harry Frig, A Reunion with Jack Smite, who directed Harper. Harper is pretty funny, but not a comedy. The Secret War of Harry Frig, which seems like a World War II drama on its surface about five captured generals, is actually a comedy and a bad comedy?

• 1:33:28Amanda Dobbins?

  I think I forgot to watch this. I'm realizing now.

• 1:33:31Sean Fennessey?

  You didn't miss much. It is.

• 1:33:36Sean Fennessey?

  One of Newman's rare attempts to do pure comedy and be the lead of the film. And he plays a private who is elevated to major general inside of this prison camp in an attempt to like create some sort of environment where he can free these five other generals. Very silly and not very effective, but I'm glad I watched it. It's red. It's the kind, it's the sort of, I think I've even said this on the rewatchables, that there are certain movies that you forget that no one remembers. Like this movie wasn't made in 1954. It was made immediately after Cool Hand Luke.

• 1:34:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:34:07Sean Fennessey?

  No one saw it, no one cared, no one ever talks about it. It has really no public profile. I find that fascinating. Part of the reason why is it's just not very good. 1969 Winning.

• 1:34:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:34:15Sean Fennessey?

  Which, did you get a chance to watch this?

• 1:34:16Amanda Dobbins?

  I did, yes.

• 1:34:18Sean Fennessey?

  This is a critical movie in his career and in his life, even though it's not, I think ultimately not a very successful film. Would you agree with that?

• 1:34:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. It made, it made me nervous for F1, the film. Because there's just a lot, so this is the movie, he plays a race car driver.

• 1:34:31Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:34:31Amanda Dobbins?

  And this is the movie that got him into race car driving. And so he becomes, and it's definitely also exploring some of what's going on in his personal life. There is a scene in which he walks in on his wife, played by Joanne Woodward, having an affair with Robert Wagner.

• 1:34:48Sean Fennessey?

  Correct.

• 1:34:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Daddy Wagner, as he's known here on The Big Picture. You remember that? Check out the Natalie Wood documentary on Max, if you haven't, if you don't. Um, and, but there are a lot of race car driving scenes that just go on and on and on and on.

• 1:35:06Sean Fennessey?

  I would argue they're not enough. They all come in the last 40 minutes.

• 1:35:09Amanda Dobbins?

  That's true.

• 1:35:09Sean Fennessey?

  There's like an hour of this movie with no race car driving.

• 1:35:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but the climactic scene is really, really long.

• 1:35:16Sean Fennessey?

  It's really long. This is not, James Goldstone directed this movie, who's not a filmmaker on the caliber of Rosenberg or Ritt or some of the other filmmakers that he's working with a lot in the 60s. The drama of the movie is fascinating, in part because it's a movie definitely about the complexities of his relationship with Joanne Woodward, but even more specifically about his relationship with his son at the time. And there's a kind of surrogate son figure that comes into the movie who's Joanne Woodward's character's son. And he, you can see him putting his experience of trying to teach his son to be a man in this film. And it's quite tragic because he ultimately passes away, his son. But, um.

• 1:35:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I think he's good opposite.

• 1:35:53Sean Fennessey?

  Richard Thomas is, yeah, the young, really young Richard Thomas.

• 1:35:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, and so, and it's that Paul Newman thing of, like, the scene where he teaches him to drink.

• 1:36:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:36:01Amanda Dobbins?

  They just, like, everyone's awake and you're just like, oh, I'm watching something here. And I honestly, the last scene in the movie between Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, they're standing outside the house and it's like, are they gonna reconcile or are they not? And they, it's, it's wonderful.

• 1:36:15Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it has the, it feels like a new Hollywood movie. It feels like a complex character drama that doesn't tie it up nicely in a bow, but it's kind of a, kind of a dirge, you know? So, winning, even though it's important to his life, is gonna be red. And then in 1969, Bush Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

• 1:36:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Green.

• 1:36:34Sean Fennessey?

  His first movie with George Roy Hill, an all-time classic, one of the best American movies ever made. This is his, I would argue, his first old guy part.

• 1:36:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:36:44Sean Fennessey?

  He is the much elder to Robert Redford. He is more of, I don't know if he's a mentor per se, but he's more of the, like, leading rapschallian in the duo.

• 1:36:51Amanda Dobbins?

  He's the, he puts it together.

• 1:36:53Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, and the Sundance is the young buck. I don't, you know, what can you say? Magical movie. One of the most fun movies you can watch.

• 1:36:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I did re-watch it just because I hadn't seen it in a few years. It's just, it still slaps, just so you know.

• 1:37:04Sean Fennessey?

  Super fun. Newman's very funny in this movie.

• 1:37:07Amanda Dobbins?

  So was Redford, honestly, which is just, you know.

• 1:37:10Sean Fennessey?

  They both are. I could live inside of the scene when they're about to jump off the cliff and Redford tells him he can't swim. I love them together in that moment. Obviously Newman's fight scene when he beats up the big guy is so great. Just, just perfect little piece of movie making. So it's green. 1970, WUSA.

• 1:37:29Sean Fennessey?

  Kind of a nightmare.

• 1:37:31Amanda Dobbins?

  This is what you were talking about when you were like, the politics got like too into the movies?

• 1:37:35Sean Fennessey?

  He's obviously spent a lot of time fighting for civil rights and speaking out against the Vietnam War and he's made this movie that is about a man who basically has no point of view on the world, but works for a conservative talk radio station and, you know, mimics the ideas of the far right, the Christian right. And it becomes this kind of big arch satire of the falsity of American life through politics. And it's so much speechifying and it's super pretentious and-

• 1:38:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Joanne Woodward's also in this one.

• 1:38:09Sean Fennessey?

  She is, she is. And it's also like, it's set in New Orleans and then there's like New Orleans jazz happening in the film and Anthony Perkins is kind of on the sidelines of the story. It's a really like messy, it's a swing. It's an attempt to do something artistic, but it's almost like he couldn't get out of the way of his own. I'll tell you what it is. We don't do this as much anymore that we have kids, but we used to go out to dinner all the time, me and you and C R and our spouses. And there would be a moment at roughly the two plus hour mark of the dinner, where it would just be like, should we talk about politics? And then it would invariably lead to like various men just sharing strongly held opinions that are just not that interesting. And-

• 1:38:49Amanda Dobbins?

  The number of times you had to apologize to someone, like, like literally, like we've left the restaurant and before everyone to their cars, you had to just be like, I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry, Chris. I'm sorry.

• 1:39:00Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I should be apologized to as well, but nevertheless, it just feels like that. Just feels like a guy who's just like, all right, man, I know you feel strongly about this. You know, we get it. So it's red. I'm really interested in Sometimes A Great Notion. I don't think that this is a perfect film or even a great film, but I'm very interested in it.

• 1:39:19Amanda Dobbins?

  It's good.

• 1:39:20Sean Fennessey?

  Quite good.

• 1:39:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:21Sean Fennessey?

  I think this is a little bit of a lost keystone for him. He directed this movie.

• 1:39:25Amanda Dobbins?

  He takes over, right?

• 1:39:26Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:39:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Because things are going poorly.

• 1:39:27Sean Fennessey?

  Another filmmaker was making it, it was going very badly, so he had to take over. But it comes at a time when he's having a tremendous amount of turmoil. His drinking is really getting out of control and he and John Woodward are having a lot of problems. And he's coming off of the failure of WUSA, which is a film that he produced for this company that he founded in the late 60s with Barbra Streisand. And a third star.

• 1:39:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Sidney Poitier?

• 1:39:48Sean Fennessey?

  Sidney Poitier.

• 1:39:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:39:49Sean Fennessey?

  Where the, I think it's called Artists First, where they essentially develop and produce their own material. Sort of the Ben and Matt.

• 1:39:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:39:59Sean Fennessey?

  Sometimes A Great Notion is Ken Kesey's second novel. It's about loggers in Oregon, a family of loggers in Oregon. If you're excited about the forthcoming logging drama, Train Dreams, coming to Netflix, I would say this is the source text. And it's an interesting movie about this family's disinterest in the unionization of logging in that community at that time, in that industry. And some of the complexity downside that's of like closing yourself off of your kind of isolationism. And what you think might be a sense of integrity is actually a kind of a loss of purpose and like creating danger around their lives. Some of the movie isn't fully baked, or it feels like they weren't quite able to make what they wanted to. It seems like it was a very difficult shoot.

• 1:40:44Sean Fennessey?

  Henry Fonda is actually in this movie as the patriarch. There's a death scene in this movie that is among the most upsetting.

• 1:40:50Amanda Dobbins?

  It's awful.

• 1:40:51Sean Fennessey?

  Scenes in movie history. I don't really want to spoil it for people, but I'll just say that the guy who dies, the actor who dies, who did not have a big career in Hollywood, but was nominated for an Academy Award for this movie. Almost entirely due to this scene.

• 1:41:03Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:41:03Sean Fennessey?

  Which is riveting and very tough. And Newman directed it and did an amazing job directing it. I just would recommend this movie. I don't know if it go, I don't know.

• 1:41:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Is it a blue?

• 1:41:13Sean Fennessey?

  We have two blues, so maybe this could be my second blue, unless you want it to be your second blue. It's a darn good movie.

• 1:41:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Paris Blue can be my first blue.

• 1:41:20Sean Fennessey?

  Okay.

• 1:41:20Amanda Dobbins?

  So this can be your second blue.

• 1:41:21Sean Fennessey?

  This will be my second blue.

• 1:41:22Amanda Dobbins?

  I, because there's another one that I'm saving for my second blue, if it's not green, which it might need to be.

• 1:41:28Sean Fennessey?

  1972 Pocket Money?

• 1:41:33Amanda Dobbins?

  I watched it.

• 1:41:34Sean Fennessey?

  I was a little disappointed in this one.

• 1:41:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, he, he's like, he's like dumb cowboy, right? He's like dumb butch, basically.

• 1:41:41Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's just, it's a, it's a. It's so much of HUD. It's like, it's a movie about like a cattle rancher who buys sick cattle and then needs to make some changes.

• 1:41:51Amanda Dobbins?

  But it's like funny.

• 1:41:52Sean Fennessey?

  It's meant to be played as like a little bit more of a romp and Lee Marvin's in it. But I found it to be a little, it's another movie that like not a lot of people have seen.

• 1:41:59Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't say I laughed, but it's just played for.

• 1:42:02Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, this one is a red for me. I was not a huge fan.

• 1:42:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:42:05Sean Fennessey?

  I know the life and times of Judge Roy Bean has its fans. This is his first movie with John Huston. That you weren't, you weren't one of them.

• 1:42:12Amanda Dobbins?

  No, this is the bear movie. Did you re-watch it? So you didn't see the bear?

• 1:42:16Sean Fennessey?

  Well, I've seen, I saw it some years ago.

• 1:42:18Amanda Dobbins?

  But you did not, when we discussed it, you did not recall.

• 1:42:20Sean Fennessey?

  You were like, this is the bear movie. And I was like, I don't know.

• 1:42:21Amanda Dobbins?

  I know. There are a lot of westerns. There are a lot of things happening.

• 1:42:24Sean Fennessey?

  This is when hot Ava Gardner, hot old Ava Gardner.

• 1:42:26Amanda Dobbins?

  Like with, with cattle and, you know, and with other, you know, parts of the West and nature and stuff. And this one is the bear. That's how I remembered it. His, it's name is Bruno, the bear. Uh, Paul Newman yells at him.

• 1:42:41Sean Fennessey?

  Did you like it?

• 1:42:42Amanda Dobbins?

  It was okay.

• 1:42:43Sean Fennessey?

  It was kind of a hit at the time and kind of a big movie. I don't think it's one of Huston's best movies or one of Newman's best movies, but you can see him kind of settling into gray hairdom. You know, being an elder.

• 1:42:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes. And being a little cranky and just, you know, coming in to either act opposite a bear or do the, to be memorable and then leave, sort of.

• 1:43:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. I think it's like, probably as close to a yellow as we'll get in this era.

• 1:43:12Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, so the next one, the next one can be red, but when we were talking about the bear, well, we were talking about life and times of Judge Roy Bean, which I call bear movie.

• 1:43:23Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:23Amanda Dobbins?

  Well, I said to you, like, I prefer the other John Huston movie that he made, which is the next movie, The Macintosh Man, which is another, like detective.

• 1:43:32Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, it's like a spy thriller.

• 1:43:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. So, and so he makes, he makes a lot of westerns and he makes a lot of detective spy thrillers.

• 1:43:40Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:40Amanda Dobbins?

  And it's just a genre preference for me.

• 1:43:43Sean Fennessey?

  The Macintosh Man is a weird one because he does a lot of accent work in this movie. And his Australian accent is the worst I've ever heard in my life.

• 1:43:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:43:51Sean Fennessey?

  Like truly terrible. The movie is pretty cool. It's about a guy who purposefully gets arrested to get into prison to learn how about this group, this organization that extracts people from prison for a price. And he extracts somebody who was in prison with him. And then they learn about the inner workings of this organization. It's like a fascinating, it's a little bit like confusing and naughty at times. But um, and not, and not going in the Hall of Fame or anything, but a neat discovery for me. I hadn't seen it before.

• 1:44:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I had never seen it. It held my attention. I was like, I, I agree. It's a little dense.

• 1:44:20Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:21Amanda Dobbins?

  A little slow moving in the way that just, you know, we're, our, our brains are ruined by

• 1:44:26Amanda Dobbins?

  all of the technologies available to us, but it's pretty good.

• 1:44:29Sean Fennessey?

  If I had stumbled into it on a Saturday, not as not part of a 40 film rewatch.

• 1:44:33Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:33Sean Fennessey?

  It would have been even more enjoyable. Uh, 1973 is The Sting.

• 1:44:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Green.

• 1:44:38Sean Fennessey?

  This is a green. Obviously it's a reunion with Redford and George, George Roy Hill. It's also the only movie that he ever starred in at one best picture. And so for that reason alone, I feel that it should be, and he's also incredible as Henry Gondorf. The scene of him playing poker, Robert opposite Robert Shaw is one of the funniest movies.

• 1:44:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:54Sean Fennessey?

  Wiping the tie on his face and.

• 1:44:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm realizing now that the, my first interaction with Paul Newman was actually The Sting.

• 1:45:01Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, interesting.

• 1:45:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Because I learned how to play the entertainer on the, on the piano. And so my parents were like, oh, we're, well, sure. You love The Sting. And I was like, again, I'm seven.

• 1:45:08Sean Fennessey?

  Marvin Hamlish, is that who is the composer of this movie?

• 1:45:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, but it's like, that's a Scott Joplin.

• 1:45:13Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, right.

• 1:45:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Like original that they, that they use prominently in the film. Um,

• 1:45:19Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I would say that at seven, I didn't get it, but then I grew up and watched it again. Very charming.

• 1:45:24Sean Fennessey?

  It's not my favorite of his movies. I think it's actually one of the lesser thematic movies that he made. It's really just a good time at the movies. It's kind of the Top Gun Maverick of its time, you know? It's like, oh yeah, these guys. I love these guys.

• 1:45:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:45:36Sean Fennessey?

  They're doing fun stuff. They're in great costumes or this is a risky proposition they're about to embark upon. Um, And this is kind of now kicking off another big period for him in the mid 70s where he kind of comes back in a big way. In 74, he co-stars opposite Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen in The Towering Inferno, which is probably the biggest, maybe the second biggest behind The Poseidon Adventure, of the Erwin Allen mega disaster blockbusters. This is the sort of twister Independence Day of its time. Huge cast, star studded, and a terrible, exciting, special effects laden, I don't know, you know, mega movie. The movie, it's also okay. It's like two and a half hours.

• 1:46:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Really, really takes them a long time to get everyone out of that building.

• 1:46:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:46:21Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 1:46:21Sean Fennessey?

  And like, once the fire is set, for like 30 minutes, William Holden is like, it's gonna be okay, let's stay in here. And I don't really, you know, the plotting is a little bad, is pretty bad. It's also an interesting thing where it's based on two different novels that they smashed together.

• 1:46:36Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:46:37Sean Fennessey?

  One of which was called The Glass Inferno, and the other one was called The Tower.

• 1:46:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:46:43Sean Fennessey?

  So they literally combined like the titles of the two novels in addition to the storyline. Newman plays the architect.

• 1:46:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:46:49Sean Fennessey?

  Steve McQueen plays the fearless fire chief.

• 1:46:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:46:52Sean Fennessey?

  Faye Dunaway plays the hot lady that he sleeps with. What does she do?

• 1:46:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, I don't know, but I will tell you. I mean, she doesn't get to do anything. It's a completely thankless part, but Paul Newman is quite responsive to whatever Faye Dunaway is putting on screen.

• 1:47:05Sean Fennessey?

  You know, it's, she's obviously quite-

• 1:47:07Amanda Dobbins?

  She's obviously Faye Dunaway in the 70s. It's like, I get it.

• 1:47:09Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, she's super hot and she's beautiful in this time in movies, but she very rarely plays characters that are like seductresses. You know, she's like in, like negligee in this movie, and she's more overtly sexual than like Diane Christensen. Anyway, it's a perfectly adequate blockbuster.

• 1:47:24Amanda Dobbins?

  It's not going in.

• 1:47:25Sean Fennessey?

  It's not going in. 75, The Drowning Pool. This is a reunion of the Harper Crew. Same character, just a great-

• 1:47:36Sean Fennessey?

  New Hollywood detective movie.

• 1:47:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Movie rocks. This is my blue.

• 1:47:40Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, great.

• 1:47:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Putting in it. I love this movie.

• 1:47:43Sean Fennessey?

  Wonderful.

• 1:47:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, it is, you know, obviously, some of it is personal preference of like a mystery and then a bunch of people not doing what they should be doing with with southern accents. Very, very young Melanie Griffith.

• 1:48:00Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:48:01Amanda Dobbins?

  But I mean, this is shot by Gordon Willis. Like, it looks beautiful. Joanne Woodward is in this one.

• 1:48:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 1:48:06Amanda Dobbins?

  It's, I think he, again, like, he's aging and so even he he fits in this character more.

• 1:48:15Sean Fennessey?

  I agree.

• 1:48:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Slightly older than even, yeah, than than in Harper.

• 1:48:19Sean Fennessey?

  It moves from California to Louisiana. As you said, shot by Willis, scored by Michael Small. It comes out right around the same time as Night Moves, the Gene Hackman detective movie. They're kind of like this neat little double feature that also features a very young Melanie Griffith and is like kind of skeezy, but very entertaining and like a good mystery. It's like, it's a, this is a movie that's like a good book.

• 1:48:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Really, really good.

• 1:48:40Sean Fennessey?

  Just like a good page turner. He makes a movie like this much later in his career that I really liked too, which could have been a blue for me as well. We'll get there. Seventy six, he just does a cameo in the Mel Brooks movie Silent Movie. Obviously, that's not going to go in. Also in seventy six, he makes Buffalo Bill and the Indians. This is his first movie with Robert Altman. I think a little bit of a lost classic, a little bit of a misunderstood movie. I'm not going to advocate for putting it in.

• 1:49:02Amanda Dobbins?

  You do it.

• 1:49:04Sean Fennessey?

  At the time, way ahead of its time.

• 1:49:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:49:07Sean Fennessey?

  At the time, a vision of the West and the American Western and show business as like.

• 1:49:12Amanda Dobbins?

  And Paul Newman.

• 1:49:13Sean Fennessey?

  And Paul, yes, the falsity of presentation that goes into these myths and these icons of our culture by using Buffalo Bill Cody as like a portal into how this is a guy who. Many people thought was a hero of the Old West, but was in fact just like basically a carnival performer.

• 1:49:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:49:33Sean Fennessey?

  Some really, really good performances in this movie. Geraldine Chaplin's wonderful, young Harvey Keitel. The movie's shot in what Altman calls like an antique style. So it's kind of got this, it's all kind of browns and maroons and yellows. The coloring is beautiful and it's, it's, it's his first movie after Nashville. It's that thing where like, there's always something happening in the background. The camera's always kind of roving around, looking for another event. It's a single location, but it feels very vast. It's a very cool movie.

• 1:50:01Amanda Dobbins?

  And Newman like, you know, does hold it all together.

• 1:50:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 1:50:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Both like in the text of the story, but also in, in the presence of your eye always finds him wherever he is.

• 1:50:11Sean Fennessey?

  Yes. Seventy seven slapshot.

• 1:50:15Amanda Dobbins?

  In green.

• 1:50:16Sean Fennessey?

  Has to go in. Amazing comedy that is what I was referring to. I think they, I think they locate this in The Last Movie Stars where he starts thinking, if I want to get some of my ideas across about the way that the world is, I need to do it in a slightly more approachable format.

• 1:50:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:50:31Sean Fennessey?

  This is a hockey comedy directed by George Roy Hill, who just made two huge smashes with him about a small semi-professional club. And it's unclear who owns the team and why the team is being sold or closed down and who is controlling the fate of these guys. Newman plays Reggie Dunlop, who's sort of the coach star, aging star of the team. And it's a hijinks movie. Everything is like ridiculousness, the Hanson brothers and their, the, what they get up to beating the shit out of everybody on the ice. It's episodic, it's very silly. It's also written by a woman, the very rare new Hollywood comedy with a female screenwriter, Nancy Boyd, I want to say, who based the experience on, I think her brother's time

• 1:51:16Sean Fennessey?

  playing semi-professional hockey. Just a brilliant movie.

• 1:51:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Really, really funny. Also very funny to watch. It's. Funny to watch with other people and watch them laugh like it just makes it makes all boys your age laugh like so hard.

• 1:51:30Sean Fennessey?

  Handsome brothers.

• 1:51:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's really, it's really, really funny.

• 1:51:33Sean Fennessey?

  Um, 79 quintet. Well, you know, let's count up how many greens we have.

• 1:51:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:51:38Sean Fennessey?

  As we're getting deeper and deeper into this run. So we've got one, two, three, four, five. Hmm, looks like we've got six right now. Not, not as many movies left as you might think.

• 1:51:52Sean Fennessey?

  Buffalo Burning Indians is red, Slapshot is green. Quintet is his second movie with Albin, a famous disaster, a post-apocalyptic science fiction drama about a society in which everyone plays a board game quintet, but some people play it with real people who are murdered.

• 1:52:11Sean Fennessey?

  I won't defend it.

• 1:52:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, don't, okay.

• 1:52:14Sean Fennessey?

  I won't defend it.

• 1:52:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Listen, sometimes you try things.

• 1:52:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:18Amanda Dobbins?

  And if you're Robert Albin, you can really try whatever you want.

• 1:52:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:52:21Amanda Dobbins?

  And Lord knows he did.

• 1:52:22Sean Fennessey?

  This is one of the movies that's, this is the movie that kind of like clinched his fall that led to him making Popeye because he had made three consecutive dove, three or four consecutive duds, like a wedding, perfect couple, quintet, and health all happened in this four-year window. And he's like, fuck.

• 1:52:41Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:52:41Sean Fennessey?

  I was on top and now it's over within five years. Interesting movie in that respect, but very slow and a little hard to follow at times. And Newman is like, it seems like he's stoned throughout the whole movie. He's so quiet. So that's red. When the time ran out, when time ran out, I didn't watch.

• 1:52:56Amanda Dobbins?

  I didn't either.

• 1:52:57Sean Fennessey?

  So this movie's gotten very bad reviews. It does not seem historically significant. He made this movie because he had to fulfill a contract with Erwin Allen, theoretically, I assume was made during the making of The Towering Inferno. And it's another disaster movie that also stars Willi Holden and Jacqueline Bissett. And it's about a volcano. It's red.

• 1:53:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:53:16Sean Fennessey?

  Ford, Apache, the Bronx. Did you check this out?

• 1:53:18Amanda Dobbins?

  No, I couldn't.

• 1:53:19Sean Fennessey?

  I watched it on YouTube.

• 1:53:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, well, you didn't tell me.

• 1:53:22Sean Fennessey?

  I'm sorry you didn't ask. I found it on YouTube, I believe, with Polish subtitles.

• 1:53:27Amanda Dobbins?

  I mean, I did ask you if this was in your physical media collection, and you said it was not available.

• 1:53:31Sean Fennessey?

  It's not available. You cannot buy this movie on physical media. You might be able to buy like a dingy DVD, but it's not actually a good transfer. It's a cop drama. Newman as a New York cop, you know, not bad. He's okay. He falls in love with Rachel Tickleton, who's about 25 years younger than him in the movie. She plays a nurse. The movie is-

• 1:53:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Won't be the last time.

• 1:53:49Sean Fennessey?

  That's a good point. It's not super notable, except for the fact that it very clearly inspired Hill Street Blues. And even when you watch the scenes of the cops in the locker room, this movie as the template for the prestige network cop drama is a really interesting artifact. Newman's fine. Ken Walls, and he's fine. Ed Asner's fine. It's an okay drama, but it's got some historical significance. Absence of Malice, have you seen this?

• 1:54:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I watched this for the first time. So I would love to have like a really, really like open discussion about this movie and Sally Field and ethics and journalism.

• 1:54:27Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, let's do it.

• 1:54:27Amanda Dobbins?

  What's going on?

• 1:54:29Sean Fennessey?

  Um.

• 1:54:30Amanda Dobbins?

  What's going on? This is a weird movie.

• 1:54:33Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, yeah, it's a movie about, is he, is he a construction company owner? I'm trying to remember what his job is. I didn't re-watch it for this. Sidney Pollack directed this movie. Newman and Sally Field, as you said.

• 1:54:48Sean Fennessey?

  It's, I think it's about a construction company owner who is, uh, it's, it's-

• 1:54:53Amanda Dobbins?

  He's a liquor wholesaler.

• 1:54:55Sean Fennessey?

  Oh, liquor wholesaler.

• 1:54:55Amanda Dobbins?

  But he's adjacent to, but like, he's the son of, but quote unquote, not involved in like illegal activities of like the mob, right?

• 1:55:07Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, and-

• 1:55:08Amanda Dobbins?

  Organized crime.

• 1:55:08Sean Fennessey?

  There's an insinuation in a newspaper article that he is responsible for a crime.

• 1:55:13Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:55:13Sean Fennessey?

  Sally Field's the reporter who, who, who puts his name in print-

• 1:55:17Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:55:17Sean Fennessey?

  And, and libels him.

• 1:55:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:55:20Sean Fennessey?

  And-

• 1:55:24Sean Fennessey?

  It definitely goes off the rails. He made this movie in part because he was having such a hard time with the tabloid press, particularly the New York Post.

• 1:55:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:55:32Sean Fennessey?

  That he was obviously very angry with what he felt that the press could get away with, particularly a certain kind of tabloid press.

• 1:55:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Sure.

• 1:55:40Amanda Dobbins?

  Which, valid.

• 1:55:42Sean Fennessey?

  It is valid.

• 1:55:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Sort of.

• 1:55:43Sean Fennessey?

  It's made for kind of an awkward, like, is this movie against journalism? I'm not entirely sure.

• 1:55:48Amanda Dobbins?

  Like, I guess it's like against journalism, but then he starts to, his character starts a romance with Sally Field. So it's against journalism in that way. You're, everyone, you're not supposed to do that. Um, and that's obviously like a long time trope in, in movies of like the female, and, you know, the female journalist who starts having an affair with her source.

• 1:56:06Sean Fennessey?

  I think the gender dynamics are part of what makes this movie a little icky.

• 1:56:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's tough. Um, um, I mean, I guess they do have the scene in the opening with the lawyer explaining basically, like, the basic libel laws and what you need to do. And like, did you call for comment? I was kind, for a minute, I was like, well, this is decent journalism school.

• 1:56:25Sean Fennessey?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:56:25Amanda Dobbins?

  And then nothing happens. And he's just like a, I, like, I kept waiting for him to turn bad also.

• 1:56:36Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:36Amanda Dobbins?

  You know?

• 1:56:36Sean Fennessey?

  There's something odd about the characterization.

• 1:56:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:56:39Amanda Dobbins?

  And I, and I was like, what's going on here? And then he was just like, he was right and tabloids are bad? Okay.

• 1:56:48Sean Fennessey?

  It's, it's kind of a miss for me, even though it was a big deal film at the time. He was nominated for an Academy Award for this movie, his performance. It's his one, two, three, four, fifth nomination, and he has not won yet.

• 1:57:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:57:02Sean Fennessey?

  Just worth noting here, conversationally, in 59, he was nominated for Cat and a Hudson Roof. He lost to David Niven for Separate Tables. 62, he lost to Maximilian Schell for Judgment at Nuremberg. 64, he lost to Sidney Poitier for Lilies of the Field, becoming the first black, uh, male Academy Award winner. 68, he lost to Rod Steiger for In the Heat of the Night, another legendary movie. And then in 82, he loses to Henry Fonda, his former scene partner and sometimes a great notion, for On Golden Pond. So he's not won yet, even though he's an icon of the industry and he's entered his late 50s, essentially. But he keeps losing to these heavyweight performances, you know, like Maximilian Schell and Judgment at Nuremberg. That's like one of the most stirring performances of its era. And that's going to continue.

• 1:57:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:57:46Sean Fennessey?

  As we go through the list, uh, because in 1982, he makes The Verdict, which is a five star classic and one of my favorite movies of all time.

• 1:57:54Amanda Dobbins?

  Unreal.

• 1:57:55Sean Fennessey?

  We just showed it at the Coolidge Theater in Boston. Chris Bill and I sat through the whole movie and we're just, just moved. So it's just one of the great courtroom dramas ever.

• 1:58:03Amanda Dobbins?

  It's one of the ones that I saved as like a treat. I think, yeah, a couple of nights ago, I sat there and I was like, sorry, I, I can't do bedtime. I gotta go watch The Verdict.

• 1:58:11Sean Fennessey?

  It's a tremendously satisfying movie and it's a movie in which he has poured a lot of himself.

• 1:58:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:58:17Sean Fennessey?

  And Frank Galvin and his struggles with alcohol and his struggles with the ability to perform and to live up to the expectation that has been set upon him and sort of like the real him and the him that he could have been as an idea is so strong in this movie. Great David Mamet script, Sidney Lumet directed, he's nominated. I think this is the performance of his career. He's astonishing in this movie.

• 1:58:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, I mean, you're right, but this is also, it's like, oh, this is old Paul Newman.

• 1:58:43Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:58:43Amanda Dobbins?

  So cool hand Luke is young Newman and this is.

• 1:58:46Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah, I think those are the good, yeah, the counterweight. Um, and he loses to Ben Kingsley for Gandhi.

• 1:58:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, it's not what you want.

• 1:58:53Sean Fennessey?

  It's tough. The verdict's going in, it's green. 1984, Harry and Son, he directs this movie.

• 1:58:57Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:58:58Sean Fennessey?

  Another movie about the difficulties of being a dad.

• 1:59:00Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:01Sean Fennessey?

  Um, he does make this in the aftermath of the death of his son. His son is played, his son character is played by Robbie Benson in this movie. Robbie Benson did not get very good reviews.

• 1:59:09Amanda Dobbins?

  I would not say that he is great in it.

• 1:59:11Sean Fennessey?

  He's not. That's the tough thing about being Paul Newman. Paul Newman talked about this, Scott Newman struggled being Paul Newman's son.

• 1:59:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:59:17Sean Fennessey?

  And then I think just being a young actor opposite Paul Newman had his struggles as well.

• 1:59:20Amanda Dobbins?

  Joey Newman has to play like the crazy lady next door who like raises birds.

• 1:59:24Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 1:59:25Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, I'm not crazy about this movie.

• 1:59:27Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 1:59:27Sean Fennessey?

  He also again plays a construction worker in this movie who gets laid off.

• 1:59:31Amanda Dobbins?

  I, you know.

• 1:59:32Sean Fennessey?

  Cause he, was he, cause he can't see, no, he has like a heart issue. Some sort of control of his body.

• 1:59:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Right, that leg is later.

• 1:59:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:38Amanda Dobbins?

  In a different movie.

• 1:59:40Sean Fennessey?

  1986, The Color of Money.

• 1:59:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:43Sean Fennessey?

  Finally, the Academy has decided to grant him an Academy Award.

• 1:59:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 1:59:46Sean Fennessey?

  Probably 25 years too late, but uh.

• 1:59:49Amanda Dobbins?

  He doesn't show up.

• 1:59:50Sean Fennessey?

  He doesn't go.

• 1:59:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 1:59:51Sean Fennessey?

  Just very funny.

• 1:59:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Legend.

• 1:59:52Sean Fennessey?

  Um, it's nice that he won for returning to Fast Eddie Felsen and playing opposite Tom Cruise in the sort of mentor mentee role. And he's just marvelous and electrifying. This movie is pornography to me. I can watch it every day. I, it speaks deepest to my soul. Uh, it's Scorsese, Scorsese and Newman at long last. And Newman contacted Scorsese to make the movie.

• 2:00:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 2:00:19Sean Fennessey?

  And Scorsese is, and Scorsese is in the middle of a very fallow period. And Scorsese's response to him is, what do you got? He's like, well, I got me and I got you. And.

• 2:00:29Amanda Dobbins?

  Really, really good.

• 2:00:30Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah. So a great story and a movie that was a hit and I think helped.

• 2:00:34Amanda Dobbins?

  I think, like immensely watchable. Um, and it is, it is about like introducing Tom Cruise and the Eddie Felsen character, you know, kind of seeing him young self, his young self and figuring out and, but it is also just about Paul Newman.

• 2:00:51Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 2:00:51Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, and so, and Paul Newman like also clearly understands that it's one of those times where it's like, well, we made a movie to win an Oscar. And then like it did win an Oscar and also it was good and everything just like, we're all on the same page here.

• 2:01:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 2:01:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Uh, and we're doing something well for a purpose and then the purpose is achieved.

• 2:01:12Sean Fennessey?

  A hundred percent. Uh, this movie just makes me happy, so I'm very glad that I can go in. 1989, Fat Man and Little Boy. Perhaps you've seen the film Oppenheimer.

• 2:01:22Amanda Dobbins?

  So this is just Oppenheimer, but bad. And, and it, but it ends, you know, as I wish Oppenheimer would have with the Trinity sequence. But it's the Trinity sequence.

• 2:01:32Sean Fennessey?

  Are you sure having seen this now that that's where it should have ended?

• 2:01:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Here is the choice that they make with the Trinity sequence. Can I tell you?

• 2:01:37Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:01:37Amanda Dobbins?

  It's literally scored with the, like the reed flutes from the Nutcracker. I like, that is honestly, that is what is picked to play. And then the, and then the flames go up in the, in Oppie's goggles. So Newman plays Leslie Gross, who is Matt Damon's character.

• 2:01:56Amanda Dobbins?

  He does not bring the panache and charisma that Matt Damon brought to Oppenheimer. It's, this is a really bad movie. John Cusack is there doing science and then, and, and falls in love with Laura Dern, which is nice.

• 2:02:11Sean Fennessey?

  That is nice.

• 2:02:12Amanda Dobbins?

  You know.

• 2:02:12Sean Fennessey?

  So you just watched this, because I actually watched this before Oppenheimer. And I had a similar like, why, how did this happen? Now Newman, you know, was against the proliferation of nuclear weapons. And that's one of the reasons why he made the movie. And he thought the, the story of Oppenheimer was resonant and important to tell. It's interesting that he, you know, the movie could only get made if he took on the part of the military man. And so like, he's on the poster, but the movie is really about Oppenheimer and about the, the creation of, of the bomb. And it's just kind of a dud.

• 2:02:39Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:02:40Sean Fennessey?

  1989 Blaze, which is written and directed by Ron Shelton, based on a true story about a Louisiana governor who has a quite open affair with a, an exotic dancer in the film, played by Lil' Dita Davidovich, to whom I would turn my life over. She was married and is still married to Ron Shelton. And it's, I haven't seen this, no, since I was a kid watching it on cable. But I remember having fun with it. I did not.

• 2:03:07Amanda Dobbins?

  So you let me your DVD or your Blu-ray, what is it?

• 2:03:10Sean Fennessey?

  It's a Blu-ray and it's a double Blu-ray that it also includes Billy Bathgate.

• 2:03:14Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Uh, this is the one where I was like, why does Sean own this Blu-ray, you know?

• 2:03:19Sean Fennessey?

  I bought it for Billy Bathgate.

• 2:03:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Got it.

• 2:03:22Sean Fennessey?

  But I also, I really like Ron Shelton. I mean, Ron Shelton, you know, White Men Can't Jump, Bull Durham, you know?

• 2:03:28Amanda Dobbins?

  You know, so this, this has some questionable, uh, choices in terms of its portrayal of Louisiana government and some cultural insensitivities, um, and some things that, uh, we just, we don't say anymore for white people.

• 2:03:47Sean Fennessey?

  Just. I'm sure it's accurate to its time.

• 2:03:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, sure, but you know, I was kind of like, oh, I don't know. But this wasn't, it wasn't bad. Um, and he's funny. I mean, he is like sort of just playing Colonel Sanders, but like I, but, but you know, like, but a horny Colonel Sanders.

• 2:04:03Sean Fennessey?

  He plays Earl Long, who's Huey Long's brother.

• 2:04:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Is Colonel Sanders horny, like canonically?

• 2:04:08Sean Fennessey?

  Not as far as I know.

• 2:04:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Well, I mean, he, he is, he again is responsive to the charms.

• 2:04:16Sean Fennessey?

  The KFC cannon?

• 2:04:18Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't know, I'm just, you know, I know that there are fans out there in the world and I try to respect them where I can.

• 2:04:22Sean Fennessey?

  There's only like seven more movies to go.

• 2:04:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:04:24Sean Fennessey?

  We're almost there. Blaze is not going in.

• 2:04:27Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 2:04:27Sean Fennessey?

  I don't think Mr. And Mrs. Bridge is going in either.

• 2:04:29Amanda Dobbins?

  No.

• 2:04:29Sean Fennessey?

  This is the last big movie in which Newman and Woodward were opposite one another. It's a very sensitive drama about an older couple directed by James Ivory. One of the rare American films that Ivory made. It's just fine.

• 2:04:44Amanda Dobbins?

  It's fine.

• 2:04:45Sean Fennessey?

  It's just fine.

• 2:04:45Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:04:46Sean Fennessey?

  1994, a small but critical role in The Hud Sucker Proxy, directed by the Coen Brothers.

• 2:04:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, right. Yes.

• 2:04:52Sean Fennessey?

  Which is a great film, a very funny, antic, madcap, kind of post, um, you know, bringing up baby monkey business, his girl Friday, fast talking 40s comedy.

• 2:05:05Sean Fennessey?

  I like it a lot. It's not green. Newman plays the grouchy, uh, sort of head of the company who installs Tim Robbins's Hud Sucker character, who then mistakenly rises to success after he invents the hula hoop. I really like this movie, but, and I'm sure there are a lot of listeners who were like, how could you not put this in? But I'm like, we have to do 60 years of film history here.

• 2:05:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 2:05:28Sean Fennessey?

  So maybe as a, as a feint, I can say this is a yellow.

• 2:05:31Amanda Dobbins?

  We can make it yellow. Yeah, that's fine.

• 2:05:33Sean Fennessey?

  1994, Nobody's Fool.

• 2:05:37Sean Fennessey?

  Oscar nominated. An adaptation, his first adaptation of a Richard Russo novel, directed by Robert Benton. And a movie about a guy for whom life just did not work out, named Donald Sully Sullivan.

• 2:05:51Sean Fennessey?

  Another construction worker.

• 2:05:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yep.

• 2:05:54Sean Fennessey?

  Another guy whose body is betraying him, who has ruined his relationship with his son, who has no one who loves him in the world, except for...

• 2:06:01Amanda Dobbins?

  Except for Melanie Griffith, in a, in a slightly complicated way.

• 2:06:05Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, I would say Melanie Griffith.

• 2:06:09Sean Fennessey?

  Just has the first pair of breasts I've ever seen in my life when I saw this movie. I was like, all right, this is very exciting in this scene that does not necessitate her doing that, but this is a reunion of them after the drowning pool some 20 years earlier. I love this movie. It was talking to Van Lathan before we were recording earlier today, and this is clearly the first, one of the first Newman movies that we both saw. And so when I say old guy Newman, I think this is how I got to him.

• 2:06:33Amanda Dobbins?

  He's really, really good at it. And he's like, he's really good with the kid. He's really good being angry. He's, you know, still like throwing, you know, taking his shots with Melanie Griffith. It's like there's regret. It's funny. It's, it's very funny.

• 2:06:49Sean Fennessey?

  He's very funny opposite Bruce Willis, too, who's like a nepo baby shitheel in his life, and he constantly is warring with him. Very good film. Would recommend it to people. Another film, if I had another blue, I would probably throw it on Twilight, which is a follow up with Robert Benton. It's, it's basically like, the old guy's still a detective is the log line for the movie. It's Newman, Susan Sarandon is the femme fatale, and Gene Hackman, and a young Reese Witherspoon.

• 2:07:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Mm hmm.

• 2:07:16Sean Fennessey?

  And this is kind of a slick, sleek, sleazy noir, set in Miami, I believe. And of just a very fun, entertaining movie. That's like, we should let old people have cool detective movies.

• 2:07:30Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:07:31Sean Fennessey?

  And it's very good. It's not going in the Hall of Fame, but I'm a fan.

• 2:07:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Did you say this is blue?

• 2:07:36Sean Fennessey?

  I said, if I had another blue, I would make it a blue.

• 2:07:38Amanda Dobbins?

  What did you, what did we decide for Nobody's Fool?

• 2:07:42Sean Fennessey?

  Nobody's Fool, I think has to be green.

• 2:07:43Amanda Dobbins?

  Green. Okay, good. I was, that's, I think so too.

• 2:07:45Sean Fennessey?

  Academy Award nominated.

• 2:07:46Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, listen, I do too, but like, we just zoom past it.

• 2:07:47Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's this, I think it's the signature film of the end of his career.

• 2:07:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree.

• 2:07:51Sean Fennessey?

  Of the last phase.

• 2:07:51Amanda Dobbins?

  I agree.

• 2:07:52Sean Fennessey?

  Okay. 1999 Message in a Bottle. I've never seen it.

• 2:07:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Wow. I watched it for the Kevin Costner Hall of Fame, so here we are. I did revisit it. I can tell you that Paul Newman plays Kevin Costner's dad.

• 2:08:04Sean Fennessey?

  Yep.

• 2:08:05Amanda Dobbins?

  And encourages him.

• 2:08:07Sean Fennessey?

  I could see that.

• 2:08:07Amanda Dobbins?

  To.

• 2:08:08Sean Fennessey?

  To athletes.

• 2:08:09Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Two guys, two guys who aren't always in connection with their emotions.

• 2:08:15Sean Fennessey?

  That's right. Two guys who've been directed by Ron Shelton.

• 2:08:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah. Anyway.

• 2:08:19Sean Fennessey?

  Two guys who nailed Susan Sarandon in a movie.

• 2:08:22Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, all right, relax.

• 2:08:24Sean Fennessey?

  In a movie, I said.

• 2:08:25Amanda Dobbins?

  In a movie. Anyway, so Diane Lane and Kevin Costner. Or is it, no, is it Diane Lane or is it Robin Wright? Okay, message in a bottle. This is exciting. We're finding out in real time.

• 2:08:36Sean Fennessey?

  I think it's Robin Wright.

• 2:08:37Amanda Dobbins?

  Robin Wright?

• 2:08:38Sean Fennessey?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes, you're correct. Okay, so which one is Diane, which Diane, was Diane Lane in a Kevin Costner movie? It doesn't matter. That's a different Hall of Fame. It's, are they gonna find love? We don't know. Paul Newman encourages them to, and then I think he dies because he's old.

• 2:08:51Sean Fennessey?

  Damn.

• 2:08:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:08:52Sean Fennessey?

  Tough beat.

• 2:08:52Amanda Dobbins?

  Tough beat.

• 2:08:53Sean Fennessey?

  This movie's rad. Yep. Sorry. Sorry to you, sir. Where the Money Is is a movie I've not seen.

• 2:08:58Amanda Dobbins?

  Nor have I.

• 2:08:58Sean Fennessey?

  A small indie that it's, I assume he made as a favor as he's kind of slowing down on his career in a major way. And he has, you know, basically getting into his 80s. He's in his late 70s at this point and is working more sparingly. As you can see, he really starts slowing down in the mid 80s. He only makes roughly 10 movies from 1986 to 2008 before he passes. Road to Perdition is one of them. In 2002, he makes a big fancy period crime drama with Sam Mendes opposite Tom Hanks, Jude Law, and who do I forget?

• 2:09:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Craig and Stanley Tucci, all my guys.

• 2:09:33Sean Fennessey?

  And Stanley Tucci. I think this is a pretty good movie. I think among Sam Mendes' best movies, and Newman was nominated, although it felt like a little bit of a like, the old guy.

• 2:09:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:09:42Sean Fennessey?

  We need to acknowledge his greatness in Hollywood nomination. Jude Law, I think is terrific in this movie as an assassin.

• 2:09:49Sean Fennessey?

  Craig is very good in it as well.

• 2:09:51Amanda Dobbins?

  The Failson.

• 2:09:52Sean Fennessey?

  The Failson, yeah. I feel like not, not green.

• 2:09:54Amanda Dobbins?

  I don't think it is, but it's pretty good.

• 2:09:55Sean Fennessey?

  It's a good movie.

• 2:09:56Amanda Dobbins?

  And then like, there are a couple of really good scenes. That, that scene between, between him and Hanks at the end, when he's like explaining his decision. And, you know, there's a lot of father-son stuff going.

• 2:10:08Sean Fennessey?

  Yes.

• 2:10:08Amanda Dobbins?

  And.

• 2:10:09Sean Fennessey?

  Did you re-watch this? I haven't seen this in a while.

• 2:10:10Amanda Dobbins?

  I, I fast forwarded through it because I hadn't seen it in a while, but I, you know, but I have seen it. But that last scene, especially if you have all of, all of the son stuff in his mind, in your mind, it's, it's, it's very emotional. It's good.

• 2:10:26Sean Fennessey?

  2006 Cars.

• 2:10:28Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:30Sean Fennessey?

  I think, I think we've got 10.

• 2:10:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:10:33Sean Fennessey?

  Now, the kids at home.

• 2:10:34Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah.

• 2:10:36Sean Fennessey?

  Will be mad if we don't put Cars in.

• 2:10:38Amanda Dobbins?

  Someone tweeted or something that us, I don't remember, being like, you know, be brave, show your children Cars. As if we haven't already shown our children Cars.

• 2:10:49Sean Fennessey?

  Queen is a huge part of my daughter's life. No, it's not.

• 2:10:51Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, like they've seen it, okay?

• 2:10:52Sean Fennessey?

  My daughter's seen all three Cars movies. We've watched Cars with Knox. We're, we're good on Cars. Cars is, I don't think that good, honestly. I just don't think it's among the best of the Pixar films. I think for kids movies, it's good for sure, but

• 2:11:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:11:05Sean Fennessey?

  under the light of Toy Story and Finding Nemo and Ratatouille and Wally. And I don't think it's really in that tier of the movie. I know that it is beloved. I know that kids especially, this is one of those Pixar movies that like parents are like okay on, but the children absolutely love. I'm going to Disneyland next month with my family.

• 2:11:24Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, yeah.

• 2:11:25Sean Fennessey?

  And my nephew's definitely gonna want to get on the fucking Cars ride.

• 2:11:28Amanda Dobbins?

  What is the Cars ride?

• 2:11:29Sean Fennessey?

  It's like a go-kart, like around a track.

• 2:11:32Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, okay.

• 2:11:33Sean Fennessey?

  Doc Hudson is Paul Newman's character in this movie. He is the wizened, old race car driver who's giving Lightning McQueen, you know, advice from the great experience of racing over 50 years. Unfortunately, Owen Wilson has not matched Paul Newman's career at this stage of his life. But, uh, I think Cars is just fine. I think we already have 10 though, and so.

• 2:11:56Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay. Do you want to yellow it out of respect?

• 2:11:58Sean Fennessey?

  I'm inclined to yellow it out of respect.

• 2:11:59Amanda Dobbins?

  One, two, three, four. There's that one scene where they go off in the field, right? And he's trying to get back in the, the rusty guy, what? Doc Hudson, is that his name?

• 2:12:11Sean Fennessey?

  Uh, Doc Hudson is Paul Newman's character's name. The rusty guy is Mater.

• 2:12:15Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, so that's.

• 2:12:17Sean Fennessey?

  That's portrayed by Larry the Cable Guy.

• 2:12:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay, then never mind. I thought that that was, who is the, but you know, they're like racing around and he's like trying to remember how to, okay, never mind. I wasn't paying that much attention, to be honest.

• 2:12:29Sean Fennessey?

  Okay, great. Did you not revisit it every day for this podcast?

• 2:12:34Sean Fennessey?

  Let's go through what we have here.

• 2:12:35Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:12:36Sean Fennessey?

  I think,

• 2:12:39Sean Fennessey?

  here are the confirmed greens. 1961, The Hustler. 1963, Hud. 1967, Cool Hand Luke. 1969, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. 1973, The Sting. 1977, Slapshot. 1982, The Verdict. 1986, The Color of Money. 1994, Nobody's Fool.

• 2:12:54Amanda Dobbins?

  So that's nine.

• 2:12:55Sean Fennessey?

  Is that nine? Two, four, six.

• 2:13:00Sean Fennessey?

  One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine.

• 2:13:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Nine.

• 2:13:08Amanda Dobbins?

  I think it's gotta be Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

• 2:13:10Sean Fennessey?

  I agree with you.

• 2:13:11Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, so.

• 2:13:11Sean Fennessey?

  That's what I was thinking of, too.

• 2:13:12Amanda Dobbins?

  It's nine, but it's really.

• 2:13:13Sean Fennessey?

  Academy Award nominated, critical role. That's the final one.

• 2:13:16Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:13:17Sean Fennessey?

  He did direct six films.

• 2:13:19Amanda Dobbins?

  Yes.

• 2:13:20Sean Fennessey?

  Which we did not mention. Rachel Rachel, which was nominated for Best Picture, we mentioned, starring Joanne Woodward. Also got her Best Actress nomination. I think it got four or five Oscar nominations. We mentioned Sometimes a Great Notion. And that, what an interesting piece of work that is. Seventy-two, The Effects of Gammar is on Man in the Moon Marigolds, we discussed briefly. He also directed a TV movie I have not seen called The Shadow Box, which starred Joanne Woodward and Christopher Plummer. It's also about a love triangle.

• 2:13:42Amanda Dobbins?

  Hmm.

• 2:13:43Sean Fennessey?

  We mentioned Harry and Son. And then in eighty-seven, he directed The Glass Menagerie, which was released to not much fanfare, though I did watch it in ninth grade English and enjoyed it quite a bit. His enduring relationship to the work of Tennessee Williams, explored there near the end of his career. Did a lot of work in theater.

• 2:14:02Sean Fennessey?

  Including all the way up till the end of his life, he appeared in Art Town.

• 2:14:06Amanda Dobbins?

  Right.

• 2:14:07Sean Fennessey?

  On Broadway.

• 2:14:08Amanda Dobbins?

  And that was something that started, because Joanne Woodward was the, like, was involved with, like, the Connecticut.

• 2:14:17Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, in Westport, Connecticut, she was the artistic director of a theater there, and then that led to their kind of re-engagement. He had last appeared onstage in nineteen sixty-four, in nineteen sixty-four on Broadway. And two thousand and two in Art Town was the first time he returned to Broadway. Then he also did Trumbo in Westport in two thousand and four, when he was in his early eighties.

• 2:14:39Sean Fennessey?

  What can you say? What a career. What a guy.

• 2:14:42Amanda Dobbins?

  I'm a fan.

• 2:14:44Sean Fennessey?

  He's a wonderful performer. I would just would highly encourage people to seek out certainly the ten films that we've identified.

• 2:14:49Amanda Dobbins?

  Yeah, read out our Blues, though, because that's the most fun part.

• 2:14:52Sean Fennessey?

  I agree. I think the Blues will be the good discovery for people. They'll get to better understand Lou Harper as a character.

• 2:14:57Amanda Dobbins?

  I know, I guess we did. Do you want to, do you want to trade it out? I'm not moving on the drowning pool.

• 2:15:01Sean Fennessey?

  No, I think we're good. I think we're good.

• 2:15:05Sean Fennessey?

  Any closing thoughts? You think this will win us that Golden Globe for Podcast of the Year?

• 2:15:11Amanda Dobbins?

  If we could, if we could reanimate Paul Newman, so he could come with us to the Golden Globes, then yes, it would. Did he ever win a Golden Globe?

• 2:15:18Sean Fennessey?

  He, he did. He won four Golden Globes, but never for acting.

• 2:15:21Amanda Dobbins?

  Oh, great. Okay.

• 2:15:22Sean Fennessey?

  He won Golden Globes for, uh, New Star of the Year, which he shared with John Kerr and Anthony Perkins in 1956. He won Best Director for Rachel Rachel.

• 2:15:31Amanda Dobbins?

  Okay.

• 2:15:32Sean Fennessey?

  He won the Cecil B. Demille Honorary Award in 84. And then he won Best Supporting Actor for The Last Thing We Didn't Discuss That He Appeared In, which is Empire Falls, a multi-part mini-series that appeared on HBO. And he made in his eighties a kind of, um, another Richard Russo adaptation in the aftermath of Nobody's Fool, which is a pretty good show. Uh, I made a thank you. This was a ton of like work.

• 2:15:55Amanda Dobbins?

  Thank you, Sean.

• 2:15:55Sean Fennessey?

  We did quite a lot of work. You know who else did a lot of work for this episode? Is Seth Woodhouse, who aided us in research and provided

• 2:16:05Amanda Dobbins?

  Honestly, thank you so much, Seth. Yeah.

• 2:16:08Sean Fennessey?

  Killed it for us. Really appreciate his contributions to this episode. Really appreciate the contributions of our producer, Jack Sanders. Thank you, Jack. As I said, we will be back next week with a mailbag.

• 2:16:18Amanda Dobbins?

  Big Pick Mailbag at gmail dot com.

• 2:16:21Sean Fennessey?

  Yes, please email us thoughtful questions. We'll see you then.

• 2:16:42Speaker 05

  Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time.

• 2:16:54Speaker 04

  Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing. Coca-Cola. For the big, for the small, the short, and the tall. Peacemakers, risk takers. For the optimists, pessimists. For long distance love. For introverts and extroverts. The thinkers and the doers. For old friends and new. Coca-Cola. For everyone. Take out some Coca-Cola at a store near you.