Special Report: Zach Clark on The Becomers (2023)

Shocktober 2017 kicks off with Karl Freund's final film as a director and Peter Lorre's film film in America, Mad Love (1935). Based upon Maurice Renard 's The Hands of Orlac, the film shifts focus from the titular Orlac to Dr. Gogol, a cunning physician who specializes in some questionable procedures. He’s fascinated by the actress Yvonne Orlac (Frances Drake) and, rebuffed in his advances, manages to enter her life after he backhandedly helps her husband, concert pianist Stephen Orlac (Colin Clive), by giving him a new pair of hands after his have been crushed in an accident. But what kind of gift are the hands of a murderer on a master musician?Samm Deighan joins Mike to discuss the unusual American debut from Peter Lorre along with special guests Gregory W. Mank (Hollywood Cauldron: Thirteen Horror Films from the Genre's Golden Age) and Stephen D. Youngkin (The Lost One: A Life of Peter Lorre).Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

3 Loka 20172h 33min

We wrap up the first Czechtember series with a film from director Oldrich Lipský, 1966's Happy End, an experimental comedy (which is as unusual as that sounds) that puts scenes in opposite order and runs motion backward from the death of our main character (Vladimír Menšík) while he gives the voice-over account of life from birth. Of course, this provides us with constant ironic juxtapositions.The film was co-written by Lipský and Milos Macourek, the screenwriter behind some of the best comedies out of Czechoslovakia in the '60s and '70s.Kat Ellinger and Ben Buckingham join Mike to discuss Happy End and other favorite Czech comedies.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

26 Syys 20171h 21min

Czechtember continues with a look at Juraj Herz's The Cremator (AKA Spalovac mrtvol). Released in 1968, the year of the Prague Spring, the film stars Rudolf Hrusínský as Karl (or Roman) Kopfrkingl, a man dedicated to the idea of liberating the soul from the body through the practice of cremation.Samm Deighan joins Mike to discuss collaborators and the madness that gripped the world in the 1930s and '40s.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

20 Syys 20171h 44min

On this special episode, Mike talks with author Patty Farmer about her work including her latest books, Starring the Plaza and Playboy Laughs. Find out more at www.patty-farmer.com.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

15 Syys 201733min

Czechtember continues with a look at Pavel Jurácek's Case for a Rookie Hangman (AKA Prípad pro zacínajícího kata) from 1970. Very loosely based on the third part of Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, the film tells the tale of Lemuel Gulliver (Lubomír Kostelka) in the land of Balnibarbi, a surrealistic landscape where Lemuel has a hard time finding his footing, literally.Kat Ellinger and Kevin Heffernan join Mike to discuss the malleability of Swift's satire and The Key to Determining Dwarfs, or The Last Travel of Lemuel Gulliver.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

12 Syys 20172h 15min

Set in the distant year of 2017, The Running Man (1987) is set in a dystopian world where reality television rules the airwaves and the most popular show pits criminals against muscle-bound, spandex-clad "stalkers". Based loosely on a novella by "Richard Bachman" (AKA Stephen King), the film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger as Ben Richards, a man framed as "The Butcher of Bakersfield" and thrown Running Man game, hosted by Killian (Richard Dawson), and featuring a cadre of killers including Jesse Ventura, Jim Brown, Professor Toru Tanaka, and more.Andrew Nette and Aaron Peterson join Mike to discuss the film, its odd production history, and the resonance to today's world. We also discuss the work of Robert Sheckley and his influence on "people hunting people" films including The Million Game, The Price of Peril, The Tenth Victim, and Freejack.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

10 Syys 20173h 55min

We kick off the first annual "Czechtember" with a look at the most-easily accessible films of the Czech New Wave, the charmingly disarming 1966 film Closely Watched Trains (AKA Ostre Sledované Vlaky or Closely Observed Trains). Co-written and directed by Jirí Menzel and based upon Bohumil Hrabal's novella, the film stars Václav Neckár as Milos Hrma, a young man from a family of eccentrics. Not wanting to work too hard, he gets a job at the local railway station where he's mentored by the earthly Hubicka (Josef Somr) and Nazi-sympathizer Zednicek (Vlastimil Brodský).Samm Deighan and Jonathan Owen (author of Avant-garde to New Wave: Czechoslovak Cinema, Surrealism and the Sixties) join Mike to discuss Menzel's subversive film and the way it plays with "sex comedy" themes against the backdrop of Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

5 Syys 20172h 33min

The 1968 film by Frank and Eleanor Perry, The Swimmer (based on the John Cheever short story of the same name), stars Burt Lancaster as Ned Merrill, a Connecticut executive who decides to head back home by swimming through the pools of his neighbors, a "river" which he names "Lucinda" after his wife. Along the way, Ned is met with drinks, laughs, reminders of his affairs that went sour, and maybe even reminders that what he pretends to be may be no more.Elric Kane and co-host emeritus Rob St. Mary join Mike to discuss the trouble production and ground-breaking ideas of The Swimmer.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-projection-booth-podcast--5513239/support.Become a supporter of The Projection Booth at http://www.patreon.com/projectionbooth

29 Elo 20174h 45min