Pre-Rambo Films Double Feature: Bad Day at Black Rock and Ruckus + A Brief Overview on the Rambo Novel

[00:00:00] This podcast is a production of Unfiltered Studios. If you would like to know more about joining Unfiltered Studios, please visit our website at unfpod.com for more information. Alrighty, so again, but before we briefly gloss over it, yeah, Bad Day at Black Rock is a very excellent 50s Western. I had the chance to see it at a college study class and it was like, man, I'm surprised I rarely see this on TV, even rarely on Turner Classic Movies.

[00:00:29] It really is a great film noir and neo-Western. Well directed by John Sturges, who you'll know from other stuff like The Great Escape, F7, go-to Western war movie guy, but man, this movie, you know, this is embedded in our culture and it's just dynamite cast, also bit parts by Lee Marvin and Walter Brennan, Dean Jagger here.

[00:00:56] And man, it's loosely inspired by a short story with photos, published in American Magazine. I think the reason it holds up is it's just a very engaging 50s movie that is so rare to see this kind of social commentary at that time, you know, disguised in a typical blockbuster movie.

[00:01:19] So enjoy and who knows, maybe you guys might want to do a double feature with it in the original High Noon. Try it out sometime. You won't be let down.

[00:01:30] You'll never forget at BlackRock.

[00:03:33] We missed. We loaded. We edited. Sometimes we get so deep into conversation that we have separate segments worthy of their own place in the sun. Here is a reshuffled mini episode.

[00:04:00] You also have to consider there was another movie that came out before First Blood that also, I think, had a major impact on how that movie, how First Blood kind of went. And that was The Deer Hunter. Yes. Yeah. I definitely think of The Deer Hunter a lot. Yeah, there's some similarities there for sure. Especially Robert De Niro's role where he doesn't know how to be human again once he's back. And he's just telling all the still mill worker guys, hey, get it together. Stop it. Don't play with guns. Maybe coming home as well.

[00:04:30] Coming home. Yeah. Coming home. I think probably the one that I think everybody overshoots is Rolling Thunder. Rolling Thunder is great. Rolling Thunder is great. You remember the Norman Jewison, Bruce Willis movie? Yeah. In Country. In Country. Same kind of deal. Just like, I can't be human again, man. Chances are you were seeing Rambo if you weren't watching some other big 80s franchise like Back to the Future Indiana.

[00:04:59] Missing in action. Yeah. That was the sort of classic for those of us growing up in the 80s, the classic schoolyard discussion, which now we still see online. But are you a Stallone, Schwarzenegger, or Chuck Norris? You know, and everyone had their thing. I definitely was team Schwarzenegger. I'll just admit, which has led to some of my clients about Stallone. I'm team Michael Dean. He's the greatest actor. We all agree on that. Yeah. I was hype on them.

[00:05:27] You could be team Christopher Reeve as Superman. There you go. Joe Don Baker. Joe Don Baker. Wait. Joe Don Baker. Joe Don Baker. He makes Walking Tall, and then they make Walking Tall 2 with Bo Spencer because Joe Don Baker dropped out because he was good friends with Buford Purser, who was the real-life guy. I think when Purser died, he's like, no, I'm not going to do this. You can give it to Bo Spencer.

[00:05:58] But remember, he did Walking Tall. He did Mitchell. He did, you know. All these tough guy movies. I love Mitchell just from Mystery Science Theater. Oh, God. I saw it on TV in the 70s. CBS Late Night, I think it was on. It's wild how – that's the thing, too. If you miss these movies at the drive-in, you're going to see them premiere on network TV, and I miss that. You don't really see it much anymore.

[00:06:20] Yeah, I don't know if this is apocryphal or not, but at least according to Tarantino's book, Joe Don Baker was originally going to play the lead in Rolling Thunder. Really? Actually, Full Circle will bring him back to Rambo. Oh, shit. I can see that. That would have been great. And he actually had Rolling Thunder come up as like an accidental credit in Death Proof, I think it was. Well, that's just it. Tarantino loved that movie so much.

[00:06:48] That's why he named his production company after that movie, Rolling Thunder Pictures. Yeah, but it's in his book Cinema Speculation that says that. Rambo – you didn't write the first Rambo? Yeah, what I did is it was based on a book, though. You didn't? Oh, okay. I told you he wrote it. He originally just was in somebody else's movie. No. It's such a goddamn movie. Rambo had been around for – actually, I think they were going to Lab Animals before they got to me.

[00:07:13] They went through every actor in the system and eventually said, okay, let me go there, De Niro, Nick Nolte, Zippy the monkey, let's go to Sly. Right. And I looked at this and I'm going, this is a career killer. Right. This film, when we did it, it was so bad, at least I thought. Right. And even my manager, we both went out. I think we both wretched together in the alley. We tried to buy it back and burn the negative. Which film? Really? Really? First Blood. You're kidding. You thought that? We tried to buy it back and burn the negative.

[00:07:42] You thought it was a bad movie? Originally, it was three hours long. I stayed an hour and a half in the woods chasing guys. I mean, it was – and plus, I was pontificating throughout the thing. For example, I shoot an owl, and then the owl drops. I go, take that, you mouse-munching mother. Oh. I said, I can't say that. And then there'd be lines like – the cop pulls me over and he goes, where do you think you're going? I go, did you ever see Easy Rider? Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm Easy Walker.

[00:08:11] So how did you fix the movie? Well, I said, here's a good idea. Cut out all my dialogue. Right. Every line. And have other people talk about you, which, by the way, is not a bad way to live in general. Which, by the way, all the great movies made – All the great action movies. All the heroes hardly say anything. Exactly right. Other people fill in the blanks. That's right. Like the Greek chorus, you know? And I think that works. And then when you saw it played back, you said, this is a good movie. This works. Then you knew. Oh, Howard, it went from three hours to 90 minutes. That's great. 90 tight minutes.

[00:08:41] 90 tight minutes. This is so great. We were talking about all the stuff that came out before Rambo, but it is interesting how – Well, one movie that it is often noted as being kind of a homage to is the classic 1955 movie, Bad Day at Black Rock. What do you think about that, James? What movie? Rambo's often echoed as being very similar to Bad Day at Black Rock.

[00:09:10] Oh, I think so. Yeah. I mean, same kind of deal. Veteran comes home, finds – except in that one, he's avenging a friend of his, you know, who got killed out of bigotry. What year was that movie? 1955. 1955. It's a neo-Western with a very evil Ernest Borgnine and – oh, man. Spencer Tracy. Spencer Tracy, yeah. I think Robert Ryan's in it for some reason. I think he is, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's the head cuff guy.

[00:09:38] It's so gorgeous in Technicolor, but it is so funny, though, when I look at the actual First Blood novel. And it's kind of similar beat for beat, but it's more psychological. And in this version, people don't realize Rambo is the villain in this novel. Interesting. Interesting. So it is interesting as how they did film the original ending, but in that they mainly are – in the novel, they're like, oh, you can't keep doing this. You can't keep doing this.

[00:10:08] And – So how does the original end? Or the novel end, I should say? I think he does. Much like the alternate ending. The original move, once he dies. Yeah, the colonel has to shoot him, saying, stop this. That's why they filmed it. Puts him down like old yellow. And David Morell is still alive with us. He's a Canadian-American author, and he's often – he kind of was annoyed at first that they changed the book, but after a while, he was like, hey, I'm just glad you brought awareness to my novels.

[00:10:37] I think A Mice and Men would then be a more appropriate sort of thing. Tell me about the rap. He's kind of got the brain for that. Yeah, he's written a bunch of other spy novels, but you'll love this. There was a pre-movie that was a First Blood knockoff, and it came out in 81. It was known as Ruckus. Hmm. Did you guys ever see that? Not to be confused with the Jamaican film Rockers. Was it driving – It was a driving movie. Oh, fuck yes.

[00:11:07] I kid you not. Dirk Benedict, the original Starbuck from Battlestar. Yes. From the A-Team. Oh, sure, not the A-Team. Right, right. Yeah, I just said A-Team. And Ernest Borgnine is from Airwolf. We all know. There you go. 80s AF. But I just find it so funny. I saw this movie. It's pretty stupid, but it'd be a perfect – if you love any of those New World Pictures movies, check it out. The stupid Southern Twang is going to be stuck in your ears. I love you. Yeah.

[00:11:36] He gets a bunch of crazy fight scenes. He's just – but it's just so funny. Like, he just keeps going, how rude? And just like karate kicks them, almost Billy Jack style. And you're just like, what is happening right now? You want to talk pretentiousness. Kyle Hansen is a green beret. Yeah, you can find it on YouTube. Watch it if you want to laugh. You'll just – I just – yeah, I remember him just being a snake. Outside of the A-Team, I remember him being a snake.

[00:12:05] He got so many bad guy roles, despite that Stallone has hair. So that's the only thing it has in common is he does have the Stallone, Richard Dean Anderson kind of mullet.

[00:12:19] He'll return after these messages.

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