96. An Appreciation of Charles Grodin & Midnight Run (1988)

Charles Grodin died at 86 on May 18th, 2021. His career spanned from 1954 to 2017, but what's notable about Grodin is how he always prioritized happiness over success and power within the entertainment industry. This is something he wrote about over his several books, and is contained within the evidence his career leaves behind. Offered club gigs, he turned them down because the thought of doing two sets of the same material each night felt like fakery that would cheat the audience. When reminded that the audiences wouldn't overlap and that they'd never know, Grodin replied, "Yeah, but the waiters would know". I think that anecdote contains everything you need to know about how Grodin viewed comedy and his role in performing. Aside from his movies and theatrical and television work, Grodin was also a groundbreaking and vital guest on Johnny Carson and the David Letterman shows. He viewed promotional talk show appearances as awkward and phony, so he always viewed every appearance as a performance he committed to regardless of the percentage of the audience that might not be in on the joke. His humor, warmth, and decency is what burbles underneath the prickliness with which most of his film appearances lead.

In this episode, I'll talk about Grodin's career beginning with 'Rosemary's Baby' (also an FCAC episode with special guest Ted Jessup), his many legendary TV appearances, with particular emphasis on Johnny Carson and Letterman, with a clip from the time he brought his attorney onto the Letterman show to complain about his previous treatment at Letterman's hands.

Then, diving into a recent re-watch of 'Midnight Run', we celebrate the genius of this movie, it's perfect script and construction, it's (for some) difficult production, and the many many wonderful moments between Grodin and DeNiro and their castmates captured within.

I've also been a particular fan of the touching family reunion scene within 'Midnight Run', which, even tho Grodin doesn't DO much within the scene itself, has an emotional resonance because the Duke character motivates Jack Walsh to go home and visit his family for the first time in 9 years, and so much of the truth of this brilliantly handled scene stems from that place of warmth and emotional certainty that Grodin brought to the role of Johnathan Mardukas.