we're on a mission from god

wendy so i got that going darling

i picked the wrong way to quit sniffing

blue light of my life

we enjoy your films

i thought they smelled bad on the

outside

welcome to vintage video where we're

re-watching the 80s so you don't have to

we'll be reviewing every major film

release of the 1980s in real time i'm

patrick o'reilly i'm jesse bayless and

i'm richard wells and today marks the

40th anniversary of the release of rough

cut

on january 19 1980. it was written by

larry gilbert

credited as francis burns based on a

novel by derek lambert

directed by don siegel with uncredited

direction

from peter hunt and robert ellis miller

and released by paramount pictures

it's a complicated one i also should

work into the intro somehow that we're

gonna spoil every movie

i thought maybe that was worth

mentioning sure we're gonna spoil it

oh that'll be fit into blues brothers

better than it was here

the story of this film coming together

was quite confusing so i will try to

outline it as cleanly as i can

in 1975 british novelist the story of it

coming together was quite confusing or

the story itself is quite cool

it is it's a double this is one of those

things where i was like

i think i got this movie pretty down

about halfway through and then i looked

up some information it's like

oh they reshot the ending four times

maybe i don't know where this movie is

going

um we start in 1975 british novelist

derek lambert wrote touch the lion's paw

a crime thriller revolving around

a diamond heist in amsterdam within two

years of being published burt reynolds

was attached to star in a film

adaptation with blake edwards slated to

direct

i would have liked to have seen that

movie yeah it might have been neat

producer david merrick asked

screenwriter larry gelbert

to put a script together using the novel

and an early draft of a screenplay from

an unidentified writer

mere days later gilbert learned that he

had been released from the project and

replaced by a writing

team burt reynolds had it written into

his contract

that he had final say on screenwriter

and director

and rehired gelbert who spent a year

meeting with edwards in private to

develop the script further

when he finally turned it into producer

merrick he was fired a second time from

the film

by now burt reynolds had traded his

approval of writer and director for a

later start date

because he was trying to finish a

different movie

a year later the project was still

trapped in development hell so edwards

had to step away to helm the latest pink

panther installment revenge of

and don siegel was brought in in his

place

gilbert was brought back on and did

three full

rewrites with bert and dawn on a story

that by now had gone through four or

five screenwriters

shooting started very quickly once the

last draft was in place

and almost immediately director don

siegel was

fired from the production and replaced

with peter hunt

not clear why i'm pretty sure that don

siegel was in the credits though so he

must have been

okay wait for it all right sorry sorry

blake edwards poked his head back in and

offered to rewrite gilbert's draft

apparently still unhappy with the

direction of the project

and merrick asked him to consider

returning to the director's chair but it

was a hard pass from edwards

reynolds preferred siegel to direct but

was rendered powerless because he had

traded away all of his options to start

later so he could finish shooting the

movie

starting over which was released in 79

frustrated by the constantly fluctuating

crew producer merrick rejected edward's

offer to rewrite the script

fired the new director peter hunt

rehired don siegel and contracted

english playwright and novelist anthony

schaefer

to do any rewrites needed as gilbert was

committed to stanley dawnin's

movie movie during the production

usually the screenwriter is available to

make adjustments

but he was going to be doing the movie

movie

with someone else what the hell is the

movie movie it's a movie about

filmmaking

from the director of saturn 3 uh just

prior to that

so this other guy was brought on to

write the script and schaefer went on to

completely change the entire second half

of the film

to the point that gelbert petitioned the

wga to have his name removed from the

story

ultimately the decision was made by the

wga

that most of the story was gilbert's and

he would retain soul screenwriting

credit

which he accepted under the pseudonym

francis burns a character from the mash

series that gilbert had spearheaded

adapting to television

so the credited screenwriter here is the

robert duvall character

from the tv show wonderful is that

robert duvall wasn't on the tv show but

the same character from the movie

in the show is that the the end of the

drama here

no okay early on the title went from

touch the lion's paw to jack of diamonds

which it should have been

yes to diamond cut diamond which is the

worst

option a rough cut is better than

diamond cut diamond and rough cut is

terrible

eventually they landed on this though

and even though the first public

screening went really well

reynolds felt that they needed to shoot

a new ending so

gelbert wrote one free of charge

and producer merrick was against any

changes at this point but director

siegel had final cut

in his contract and he agreed with

reynolds so they pushed for reshoots

and this pushed the release date back

several months

despite insisting on the extra scenes

siegel was not around to shoot them

so directing duties fell to the

uncredited director robert ellis miller

and when all was said and done merrick

sued siegel for going over schedule and

not complying with the producer's vision

another suit was also filed by david

niven against producer merrick

and paramount because the advertising

campaign made his role look less

prestigious than he was known for at the

time which hurt his potential paychecks

in the future

that case was settled out of court for

an undisclosed six-figure sum

a third suit was fired by interim

director peter hunt

whose contract entitled him to his full

rate despite only directing about

a week of the film and he was paid out

completely 134 thousand dollars in

damages

wow jacqueline movie is super expensive

at this point

yeah already way over budget and uh

jaclyn bissett was the first choice to

play jillian

but she turned it down to do bloodline

in 79. now we can talk about the movie

wow well i'm starting to understand why

this movie was a little

crazy and i was having difficulty at the

end making sense of

why anything happened but yeah because

there's probably like remnants all over

the place of a dozen different giraffes

yeah that whole last scene was just

tacked on completely unrelated to the

rest of the film a whole bunch of the

scenes were just

tacked right in there yeah we start with

a hot air balloon being inflated

in the lawn of a mansion

that'll wake you up yes because i'm like

i hate movies that don't have a lot of

audio in the beginning so i'm turning up

the volume like

is am i supposed to be hearing something

at this point

this is a celebration of an anniversary

the first anniversary of an old man

and a young woman outside of this home

we get titles with character names

over people turning to face camera like

this is a goddamn sitcom

burt reynolds and leslie ann down notice

each other across the crowd

and a title explains that the score was

adapted

by composer nelson riddle from the music

of duke ellington

which is interesting um i think it makes

the movie feel older

than it is which is a lot of things that

make this movie feel older

it also oftentimes feels very tv

not only because i think we were

watching a uh

4-3 aspect resolution well yeah the 4-3

doesn't help anything

but the the music cues felt

very overly dramatic like a television

show of the time

but i didn't hate the music it just felt

out of place occasionally

right and i think that a lot of the

scenes felt really um

almost like like filler scenes like you

do in a long episodic type of thing

yeah reynolds has always been a cary

grant fan

and wanted to do this movie to get out

of boots and denim and cowboy hats for a

change

he stops a woman on her way into the

party and hits on her with

a bizarre cary grant impression

hello well you lead one of very mary

tastes very merry indeed

you can't be serious i've never been

more serious in my life

which she mistakes for a tony curtis

impression a forgivable mistake i would

say

tony curtis doing cary grant that's what

that's what she accuses him of being

after she thinks he was just tony curtis

it was so off-putting to me though

i really was disturbed by this and maybe

it's just because it's

so different than how burt reynolds

sounds normally but

i i didn't realize what he was trying to

do at first and i'm like oh god stop

that that's not how he's talking in this

movie please don't talk like that in

this movie i

really wanted him to be in this weird

gary grant voice the whole time

but that didn't happen she tells him

that he should maybe

change his pickup line impressions and

he says he does an excellent jack rhodes

and she says who's that he says me and

she's impressed with his wit

she's definitely trying to channel

audrey hepburn it's this scene at least

and maybe the whole movie

this whole movie feels like a poor

version

of something like how to steal a million

or

yeah it definitely has a lot of hints of

charade it definitely is trying to be

an old you know 50s heist movie and it's

just

it's definitely not no i don't think it

pulls it off she introduces herself as

jillian bromley which he says is one of

his favorite names because it sounds

like it comes after a billion

which i thought was kind of funny jack

tries to introduce her to the happy

couple throwing the party but she has

disappeared

other guests peg him as an american and

ask how long he's been here and

he lives here so he doesn't divulge any

further than that but

it's interesting to have an american

character that lives in england

for the character there's two kinds of

heist movies there's the heist movies

that

make the whole plot work and there's the

ones that just

get really confusing and screw it up

this is one this one is

part of the latter category he follows

jillian upstairs

and he ends up scaling the outside of

the building to try and catch her

stealing diamonds from a

very poorly disguised false bottom of a

homeowner's underwear drawer yeah this

drawer

is like one inch deep yeah i called it

immediately i was like oh false bottom

here

because it's more than half of the

drawer is the false bottom which it's

just supposed to be like a centimeter at

the bottom

she's digging through the homeowner's

underwear drawer and she

finds this black box full of diamonds

which she loads into a cigarette case

on the way we have this fun mix of

acrobatic stunt double

and actual burt reynolds stunts which uh

he was pretty famous for wanting to do a

lot of his own stunts himself

but someone knocks on the door here to

interrupt the theft

uh trying to use the bathroom that's

attached to this bedroom

and she sort of retreats puts all of her

stuff away

and jack jumps down from the second

floor swinging around a flagpole

and this is all in one shot so this is

actually burt reynolds jumping from the

second floor and swinging around this

pole three times

on the way down which is neat i always

appreciate it when an actor does

some of that stuff themself he catches

jillian on her way out with his clark

gable impression now

and she says she's leaving because she

doesn't like large parties so he

suggests they could go to a smaller

one or be a smaller one and when she

refuses he offers her a cigarette from

the case that she put the stones in i

think

yeah so i had to back this up like four

times i i

don't know what the [ __ ] i'm supposed to

be looking at yeah

because he opens the case but it's at a

completely different angle than we saw

it earlier yeah so it's not clear that

it's the same cigarette case

yeah and and i see cigarettes in it

and a mirror and he's like bouncing

light into her eyes yeah

and i was like am i supposed to be

seeing something

i i don't know what is here that i'm

supposed to be seeing

i think they used the same prop and we

were supposed to recognize it but

because we're seeing it from a

completely different angle and it has

totally different contents that it's not

clear that it's the same cigarette case

to us

but the implication is that he's

flashing her a cigarette case that's now

missing the diamonds i presume

it's a cigarette case that somehow from

the stairs to here

he managed to get off of her and fill

with cigarettes

yeah and so she's immediately

disheartened

because she knows she's been caught and

that this guy's much faster than she

thought

she leaves disappointed and empty-handed

and he goes home with i think the wife

whose anniversary it was

uh sheila is that is that the woman who

was celebrating her one-year anniversary

with her husband i don't know but she

was following him around the party

yeah i'm pretty sure that's the case

but uh inside the apartment she rips

open his shirt

and they lay together on his bed when he

hears a sound upstairs

and he says and you see her arm move

i mean don't move like she just grabbed

him

when he said hold it she is incredibly

intoxicated

so like to the point where she's like

falling over and

uh you know dragging along the floor

with him as he's trying to

you know enter his uh apartment and

and we don't we don't get one of those

wonderful austin powers moments where

he's like you know

we kind of do cool baby we do a little

bit get that moment

so upstairs he finds jillian hiding in

the closet and he locks her in

so that he can go downstairs and dismiss

his lady friend as he's letting her down

she does say

i had too much to drink didn't i you

don't like that i know

like he's notorious for turning women

away for drinking which i think is an

attempt to rescue his reputation

from having drug her back to his

apartment but he clearly brought her

here for this reason and the only reason

he's kicking her out now is because

jillian's upstairs

that's what i that's what i'm saying i

agree it is if jillian wasn't there

this is not how this scene would have

gone i agree 100

but he's trying to let her down as easy

as he can he's fainting that

a military injury that left him

ill-equipped to perform and she says

i can help you let me try and he says no

no no it wouldn't be any good you see i

i i have to strap things on besides all

my batteries are dead

be a mess it's just disgusting that's a

wonderful way to excuse yourself from

he's just trying to turn her off as much

as possible here

but so she leaves and he goes upstairs

to release jillian who was

here trying to retrieve the diamonds

that she thought he brought home

but it turns out he just put them back

in the false bottom of the drawer back

at the mansion so he doesn't even have

them here because he didn't want them

he asks what her deal is and she says

that she takes things because

it excites her she's basically just a

kleptomaniac

on her way out they make a lunch date

the following day and he says do you

want something good or something

expensive and she says both

at home we see jillian call someone we

learn later that this man is the chief

inspector

and he's currently in bed with his wife

because it's

very late at night the chief inspector

is being played by david niven

and his wife in bed remarks that whoever

called so late sounded beautiful

she says she was dreaming about being on

a vacation in the south of france

and nevin says lovely was it not really

it's pissing down rain

so it wasn't even an ice stream and then

she tells him oh did you read that

article that said if you don't use it

you'll lose it

because she doesn't just want to be

sleeping next to him i'm a little

confused about their relationship i mean

are we trying to establish at this point

that there's

marital problems already i don't think

that there were

marital problems i think that she

they seem to be having like a very nice

kind of banter yeah i think this was

just the typical argument between the

two of them

because it seemed it seems like she's

dissatisfied like oh you're talking to a

beautiful woman and you have no interest

in me

yeah i think that was just that was just

her making conversation and being funny

and picking on him for answering this

call in the middle of the night

okay i don't think it was necessarily

like a sign of a deeper problem they're

having

yeah i thought we were trying to set

something up because of

what happens later what happens later if

it was it was a very slight

like first step towards that oh well i

would say

only step because he's very sudden later

until the end we see her a couple times

okay but that's definitely

like it definitely comes out of nowhere

later probably because it was

completely tacked on ending jillian

meets with niven at his office the next

day

he asks how it went with rhodes jillian

tells

uh david niven's character that

everything went according to plan

that rhodes found her at the party and

introduced himself and she says we're

going out again

soon but she says how do you know that

he'll want to see me again

and i liked his response here he says

modesty is boring like

come on you know that you're hot like

he's gonna keep asking you out you don't

have to pretend that you don't think

he's gonna do that

he explains in sort of a monologue

moment that he's always been very close

to catching jack rhodes

but this is his chance to catch him

before he retires because he's basically

being forced out of the job

because of his age which uh

is illegal in america but i don't know

england rules

you can't just fire somebody from 1980

yeah maybe maybe ageism wasn't a thing

then or a protected class

but it turns out through this

conversation we learned that he is

blackmailing her to catch

jack she claims that they're tightening

the screws on her

and defensively he says turning the

screws has anybody yet told your father

that his daughter's

light-fingered proclivities might

jeopardize his position in the

government

which is exactly what tightening the

screws means like we're threatening you

so do what we say but he says haven't i

kept mum about your long string of

discretions

and this is when she leaves because

there's no more productive conversation

to be had

later she gets in a car with jack and

she pushes the pedal to the metal from

the passenger seat

oh no she's driving yeah and it's also

in england

right um i was very

upset by the like antiquated

rear projection driving scenes yeah i

was like

they're trying to be like the old heist

movies yeah do you think it was homage

or do you think it was a bunch of

terrorists no i think it was budgetary

i'm just i'm just trying to

i mean be funny actually we have some in

the next movie too

yeah but those look great yeah but you

could tell it's rare projections they

rewrote this movie like 100 times

yeah and a bunch of people got fired off

it and still got paid

but so but it's also you know how hard

is it to just

tow a car with a with another car

yeah it really can't be that complicated

because this is after smokey and the

bandit

yes which had plenty of real bert

reynolds driving scenes

yeah um there's no reason they couldn't

have been towing this car

yeah but they aren't so maybe it was

homage

yeah uh she seems to be going too fast

for rhodes's taste because he asks

we're anywhere near the end of the

runway yet and she laughs

i do like this establishment of her as a

good driver

or skilled driver good driver that's

what you took away from this

she's a skilled driver she's she's not

being she's not being reckless

only in that she's driving way above the

speed limit and doesn't have a license

yeah but i think i i feel like she's a

capable driver

i feel like you're saying that because

if this was a man doing that

i'm just saying if this was a man doing

that you'd be like you know fast to the

furious oh my god he's so amazing

well yeah that's different they have

penises

no i like the establishment of her as a

skilled

driver i agree that she is a very

skilled driver i don't think that

that she's a especially safe driver i

think she's

on purpose trying to scare him a little

bit with her driving yeah

with her skills yes she's got mad

driving skills

she catches the eye of a local speed

trap bert leans over to her

as they're coming head-on against an

18-wheeler and he says

excuse me for mentioning it but we're

about to become a hood ornament for a

truck

i don't think so

and at the very last second she just

swerves around it and

he like kind of jostles himself like he

looks like shook up about it and she

she's amused by this they are trying to

get away from the police so she

skids around all these trucks and pulls

up behind a dump truck

in this off-the-road parking lot and

he gets out of the car and he walks

around and empties the dump truck into

the convertible

well we we established during the

driving scene that this is a stolen car

i forgot to mention that so she has

stolen this car because that's what she

does she steals things

and he fills it with trash it was a

trash it looked like it was

wool it looked like shredded clothing oh

was that what it was

interesting because they go from the

scene and they start walking away and

then all of a sudden they're in the city

i was like did they spend like the last

two hours walking

yeah like how did they get here they're

also in the backseat of a car which i

was like did they steal another car

like what is going on but it turns out

that they're drinking wine in the back

of a taxi

or a cab or i don't know what you call

them in britain what is the

is there a different word for them there

no it's actually taxi like everywhere

it's one of those universal words oh

interesting uh good to know

fact-checking that

jack carries her to the door but she

tells the cabbie to wait

which implies that she doesn't intend

for him to stay the night because he's

going to need a ride home right away

she explains the door that she sleeps

nude but doesn't invite him

in because he keeps asking oh well what

do you sleep in do you sleep in this do

you sleep in that she's like no

no no but they kiss here

and after the door closes he takes the

key out of the door

and then she opens the door again

realizing that she left the key in the

door and he invites her on a second date

what follows is a string of him inviting

her on dates

while they're on dates yeah it's not

necessary and

at least two of them could have been

pulled very easily yeah there was so

much of this

and it was so unnecessary this this made

it feel like a tv show

yes so the next day they're at a cafe

and she orders a bunch of desserts

that's the end of that scene then we cut

to them at a casino where she's winning

at blackjack

i guess to show that she's good at cards

doesn't play into anything later

back at scotland yard the chief

inspector willis that's the david niven

character he is practicing putting in

his office

he speaks on the phone with jillian she

lets him know that they have another

date planned

and he suggests that they move on to the

next phase of their scheme

that night jack walks her through the

kitchen of a chinese restaurant that he

owns

and she's not able to get any

information out of him about his family

but he keeps prying her for more

information she admits that her father

is very high up in the government but

that her mom has passed away

and while they're sitting at dinner they

plan for their dinner the next day

at la zay they call the place on her way

out of the car

she tells jack a big story about an

ex that has connections to a diamond

dealer

which he's not buying from second one

you can tell from his face that he

doesn't believe anything she's saying

and it came so completely out of nowhere

that he's like oh

that's why you've been going out with me

you're scamming me for something

but she says oh i have an ex and he has

connections to this

diamond dealer in amsterdam and he

always wants to have sex with me right

before they do a big shipment

and he's like okay and she's like he

called me

and he wants me to come see him but i'm

not gonna sleep with him i'm just gonna

go see him

he's like okay great i don't care about

any of this

because he knows that she's making it up

she mentions that

uh her ex mr levy always calls her the

night before a big shipment

and he doesn't seem to care at all

willis makes a surprise visit to

jillian's home

she seems certain that he doesn't care

about the diamonds for some reason

jack has convinced her that he's not

into money

and he doesn't admit to being any kind

of a thief to her

willis points out that his specialty is

actually fencing

not necessarily the stealing of the

things that what makes him special is

that he's able to sell them

later he's able to find a market for

these stolen goods

because most thieves when they steal

something they sell it for way less than

it's worth because they don't know what

it's worth and they don't know the right

channels to go to

here jillian tries to wiggle out from

under his thumb

because she thinks she's basically done

enough for him but he tells her that

he's going to give her the official

shipment date of these diamonds

and she's going to give that information

to jack and he's totally going to fall

for it

she reminds him that blackmail is

illegal

and she can't keep threatening to tell

her dad about stuff

and he says policemen are constantly

breaking the law

it's one of the many ways we have about

holding it jack calls jillian that night

she is naked uh in keeping with what she

suggested was her

her usual routine it sounds like he just

blatantly

skipped a date with her like you just

no-showed to a date

but she's not upset about it at all he

blames missing the date on

having had phone sex with a different

girl because

she calls him the night before she races

her greyhound because he's just making

fun of

what she said about the diamond dealer

boyfriend and then he does this really

uncomfortable voice

and he says i talked dirty to her on the

telephone

and you were very freaked out by it oh

my god i

was so disturbed by this and then we

backed it up and listened to it like

again like three more times

because i wanted to get the words right

so creepy every time

oh my god since shivers down your spine

yeah so he asks her out tomorrow

and she agrees no problem that's cool

that you skipped out on me and we'll do

it again tomorrow

but then after he hangs up with her he

dials another number

and we don't know who this is yet but

we're about to find out the next day

they're at wimbledon and they're sitting

watching the game but almost as soon as

it starts they get up

to walk away because there's this

courtside area where you can have food

and watch the games from like a table

while you're eating because he thinks

she's bored by the game

it's called a snack bar sure so they go

there to get strawberries and champagne

and while they're sitting there a pair

of gentlemen visit their table one of

them

introduces himself as mr levy and he has

to introduce himself

to her implying that she doesn't know mr

levy

so he's basically caught her in a lie

he's confirming this

his suspicion that they have never met

and they ask if he'd like to join them

and jack says oh i'll catch up with you

guys in a minute i just have to pay the

tab here

but you go along with them she follows

these two men away

and then jack catches up in a minute

while they're leaving

in the car on the way home they're

talking about maxwell levy

and jack says i hear he's very

attractive and julian says

what i said i see why women find him

attractive

no you said you here what do you mean

you hear you just met him

and jack says no you just met him i met

a failed actor friend of mine posing as

him because

he hired someone to pretend to be mr

levy because he knew she wouldn't

recognize that it wasn't mr levy i'm

really curious what happened between

these two scenes like she goes off with

this actor and he catches up with them a

minute like

what happened that whole they must have

had a whole fake conversation after that

i mean it's totally unnecessary to the

movie but i'm just

curious yeah and then he has a weird

line here he says

that the so to convince him to play this

prank on her he says

50 pounds in the use of my body after

i'm dead which is like

we're establishing that this character

actor is a necrophiliac for almost no

reason well

and that they're actually a gay couple

um

no children though they've tried very

hard

that is a great line maybe he's not a

necrophiliac

maybe he's more like a frankenstein guy

they're bodybuilders if you will

yes she basically fesses up to him the

whole plan she tells him everything that

willis is trying to do

and she asks what she can do now because

now he knows that she's being

blackmailed by willis and he wants to

catch him

and he says well you tell willis that

the plan failed and then you go to jail

that's the end of this conversation and

he takes her home and he asks why she

wouldn't sleep with him if she was

faking the whole time

and she basically says that she had too

much self-respect essentially

i feel like at this point though she

should know that

he has known the whole time because he

is not that angry

he basically tells her that that he knew

from the second she brought up the story

about

levy that she was making it up but this

is really weird because

she says that she wasn't going to do it

even though

willis had suggested that she take him

to bed and he says

then you laid down on the job or rather

you didn't and suddenly she's like

okay come in and let's have sex and they

go inside and have sex

well do do they have sex though yes i

i feel like the joke of this long pan

showing all their clothes and strewn

about the room

was just to show that they actually just

got in a bathtub together

i don't know i thought the implication

was that they did have sex yeah i think

it was

okay i'm with patrick but they're

painting across all these clothes

increasingly private clothes on the way

to a bathtub full of bubbles and people

and uh oh god did you know just the two

that were supposed to be right there

that's full it's just it's not a huge

tub it's at least 20

full of people yes okay how do you

measure

bath so percent volumes volume

displacement of the water yeah

the draft of their bodies if you will

yes

they plan to outsmart willis together

jack jokes

no i didn't think of asking scotland

yarn but that's his new plan is that

he's literally going to get this date

from

willis and he's going to screw willis

over with it because this is a thing

that he's

known about for years he's known that

there's this diamond shipment he's never

bothered to go for it because he can't

get the information

i guess i i guess that's the implication

of that line but i didn't realize that

until you said it

i like when he asks her to call willis

and she goes why am i going to call

ellis i was like why are you whispering

you haven't dialed anything yet why are

you whispering but she tries to call him

and then she doesn't get through

which seems like a pointless yeah i was

like what is happening moment

i don't know there's a lot of those it

didn't have to happen at scotland yard

she is there the next day and tells

willis that jack brought up levy on his

own

and she refuses to participate any

further but she's

baiting him into the rest of this

conversation and willis threatens her

with

a list of notoriously awful women's

prisons where she will be

shaved fed garbage and eventually raped

this is all part of his plan

he's excited about these things that

will happen to her she

pretends to reluctantly ask for the date

and willis says she'll get it when she

gets it at this point she kind of breaks

character and is very frustrated that

he won't give her the date because

that's really all she wanted the only

reason that she came to see him

but he knows that i mean

in the long run based on what happens in

this movie he knows that that's why

she's there

and why why is he giving them the real

date

yeah shouldn't shouldn't any date work

and then you just

if he shows up not if you know the whole

rest of the movie

you can't do that you have to get them

to actually try to commit the crime

though well

yeah but you could set up a fake crime

and that

you're forgetting the final scene at

jack's place he

and a friend nigel lawton look at maps

of antwerp deliveries

jillian arrives and lawton seems

uncomfortable with a third partner on

this mission

jack asks him to prepare some passports

for them and for someone who knows

amsterdam

because he needs a driver jack pulls up

to a

nazi airport just littered with

swastikas

i'm very confused at this moment in the

film he receives a call from jillian

with the official date

of the delivery maybe maybe we're wrong

maybe this movie was supposed to take

place in 1950

no it's not jack here on the phone with

jillian tells her to meet him in paris

tonight at some

hotel some fancy hotel and she's very

excited to be globe trotting with the

diamond thief

jack speaks with this nazi character and

tells him to be in london tomorrow

he is a nazi right yeah maybe this is

the 50s

good i don't know if this is a fan of

the nazis or

i mean does when does blues brothers

take place

why are there so many prominent nazis in

all these movies well blues brothers

definitely takes place in 1980

yes but but there's oh there's many

nazis in that film as well

but we'll get there next time jack

enters the moulin rouge with jillian

there's lots of black and white striped

shirts which made us think like

is this whole thing staffed with mimes

at first or is this just like

french stereotypes trying to drive home

that we're in paris here yeah

they speak with bob at the piano about

the plan

and he seems to know everyone that's

involved except for this nazi character

ernst

and he says do i know him and he says

were you in the german army and he says

i plugged the gullet

because this is an african-american

character no well our

african parisian character african

i thought he was an american he's

american but

all right he's an american american in

paris there you go

they head to amsterdam and they're

walking through the red light district

and they're here to speak with a driver

they actually enter one of the

red light buildings the guy comes out

and they say

hey i am jack rhodes and he's like

immediately flattered and interested by

learning who this person is he's a

famous diamond thief what is what is the

male

term for a madam of a whorehouse sir

this is it i don't know pimp i mean is

it like

is that like then is they madam just a

pimp is that yeah basically

yeah i think so i i don't know i don't

want to offend anybody out there

can a woman be a pimp is the question i

would say

i feel like the difference between a

pimp and a madam is how

they treat their it depends on the pimp

there are very supportive pimps and i'm

not going to appoint a hustle and flow

because that was actually a very abusive

situation

and people pretend like he's a pimp with

a heart of gold and he threw one out

when she was pregnant in the middle of

the movie

but some pimps are nice will ferrell as

gator

and the other guys there you go was a

good guy

as they're interviewing this guy to be

their driver potentially for the diamond

thieving

he says do you need anything else like

making people disappear

either temporarily or permanently i can

do both tricks

you do that a lot but i like it

and he makes a super creepy face i had

to back it up because it's so incredible

but uh jack is very turned off by this

guy's passion for murder and terrorism

i think we all are yeah and he decides

immediately that this guy is not the

driver

for them so uh a quick fight ensues

because he doesn't even want to let jack

rhodes leave

but uh fight is a strong word because

jack just knocks the guy over

and we never see this character again i

thought he was gonna like come back and

it was gonna be an issue but he never

does

willis sits down to breakfast with his

wife and she asks if he saw the paper

and he says no and she says oh did you

catch the date

and he says that made the front page

again

but it's the 25th which means that it's

only six days until you retire

he gets a call from the diamond company

and they've decided to move the shipment

date because they received an anonymous

call

that a scheme is being put together and

they're gonna

lose their diamonds if they ship them on

that date willis insists that they keep

the date where it is

and he promises to escort the diamonds

himself

in the bathroom his assistant reveals

that they will keep the shipment date

on the 28th they're not going to move it

to the 10th

because he convinced them to keep it

where it is and he admits that he called

the threat in himself so that they would

beef up security which will help him

prevent

the diamonds from being stolen which

again if you remember

what happens for the rest of the movie

you will know that it doesn't make sense

for him to want

the security to be beefed up well

actually it doesn't matter

if the security is beefed up on the day

of i feel like more people is just

inviting trouble

though in general he just wants to

like reassure them i guess

yeah they are protecting themselves

that's all

willis talks with jillian again at her

home and he tries to weasel more info

out of her

and she pretends that she's giving him

all the information because she doesn't

think he can catch jack anyway

and then suddenly jack is knocking at

her door so her

and willis are pretending that willis is

a family friend

and when he talks to jack he says oh so

you're just visiting and he says no i'm

one of england's

foul weather friends because it's always

raining there

i actually laughed at that joke yeah it

was good uh

they joke about the subtext of the scene

um how they're both

they're kind of acknowledging in the

conversation that one of us is a cop and

one of us is a criminal

and at the end of it they exchange

business cards and willis leaves

jillian starts undressing jack while he

speaks with nigel on the phone

and he says i'm sorry something came up

as he's

as she's lifting her shirt over her head

nigel hands off their new passports to

them

and the nazi and keyboardist arrive via

plane

they ask him when he's gonna share the

date of the shipment with them and he

said

i'm gonna tell you the day before the

caper and they're like you know that's

really not enough time for us to fully

prepare and he says

okay you're right it's tomorrow because

that's the day before the caper

jillian will be the driver because the

amsterdam guy was super creepy

um and he failed his interview to avoid

suspicion at the airport they will dress

as saudi arabians that doesn't work as

well today i don't think

to avoid suspicion jack speaks with a

terrible accent

and as they head to the bathrooms after

buying their tickets jillian calls it a

bad peter sellers but he claims it was

peter sellers doing an

impression of omar sharif

mr shaman yes mr sharma yes sir can i

help you sir

he's your wife this is my wife this is

my wife

they step into the bathroom and trade

costumes with other people

because those costumes come out of the

bathroom but i don't know who these two

people are wearing the costumes yeah i

was super confused by all of this

but the agents that are trying to pursue

jack and jillian end up following these

two

doubles willis is in a vault counting

the diamonds

making sure that everything is accounted

for we cut back to the rest of the

thieving team

painting a plane jack leads jillian to a

stolen police car in a hut off the road

and he gives her one last chance to back

out and when she doesn't he admits that

he loves her

willis escorts the diamonds onto the

road

and uh nigel is spying on the plane that

will be receiving the diamonds

for this shipment and so he's describing

it to

the people painting a plane so that they

can make it an exact duplicate of this

plane

yeah so now they have a double gear yeah

they're putting like the

i don't know what it's called like the

call letters yeah yeah

and the same stripes and everything so

that it looks exactly like it

the correct plane takes off with the

diamonds on board

ernst and bob take off in the

doppelganger plane

and they're exactly replicating its

movements as they take off so they're

taking off at the same time

i don't know that that's entirely

necessary but they climb right up behind

it

in the air and they radio to the correct

plane that they will need to divert to

amsterdam

because the co-pilot here

is actually a an air traffic controller

so he knows the lingo to tell them to

divert to another

airport well i guess they had to be

close enough to that plane to radio in

order to radio them and convince them

that they were

the local air traffic control tower that

makes sense

uh so they tell them to divert to

amsterdam the stolen cop car

drives up to the airport and basically

across the whole airfield

the doppelganger plane takes the role of

the correct plane

and lanes in antwerp as scheduled but

the doppelgangers

hand off these dummy bags to the waiting

security teams

and nobody checks no nobody notices the

african american

guy that replaced the white guy in the

airplane

they basically just throw the bags out

of the plane and then take off again

yeah

so nobody checked this plane to make

sure essentially the

whoever was actually flying the the the

diamonds could have stolen them all

themselves well yeah that's the weird

thing is there was nobody

aside from the pilots in this plane the

entire time and during the meeting

where willis told them oh there was a

there was this threat on on the diamonds

but we're going to keep the same day

just beef up the security

yeah well and he also adding to the

confusion

he and i believe to be one of the

alternate endings

he places a call to someone unseen and

then hangs up and you think it's his

assistant

but then his assistant walks up yeah and

so i was like oh okay

okay he's in i that's this was my first

inkling that he's completely

in on this which isn't the case

yeah that was what i was expecting too

and that wasn't what happened

so now the correct plane that actually

had the diamonds is landing in amsterdam

and when they are getting ready to open

the plane they see

jack and jillian in the stolen police

car and they're like this is suspicious

like immediately this the plan is

falling apart they're recognizing that

there wouldn't be this one police car by

itself and these people look like

the people they've been told to look out

for so they grab a gun

ready to shoot jack as soon as they get

out of the plane but as soon as they get

the door open jack gasses both of them

the guess is one of them well yeah he

gasses one of them but the other guy

he's like blocking the door basically

but jack is able to grab both of the

diamond bags

and runs back to the police car so a

chase ensues here from the amsterdam

airport

following jack out of the out of the

airfield

but we've established that jillian's a

great driver

right on that on their way away from the

airport jack and jillian

are able to lose these police cars one

at a time

and they're racing to get to the

doppelganger plane which is landing

again to pick them

up the last police car in the chase

tries desperately to catch up with them

as the plane is taking off

but jack and jillian are able to get

aboard and he can't catch up with them

before they

disappear into the sky at home we see

willis

just drinking in his living room yeah if

only there was some kind of method of

tracking airplanes

yeah some kind of there's not though

some kind of electromagnetic

no no that would never work

this plane is gone there's no use

looking forward or anything

and uh there's definitely nobody you

could scramble from this airport that it

just took off from to follow

it if there wasn't other technology but

uh

he's just drinking at home because he

lost all these diamonds and he was

he retired in disgrace he gets some mail

which i thought was going to play into

something i i think

maybe it does i after we watched the

movie i was like oh that mailman didn't

pay off and i was like oh maybe it did

no it just gives his wife an opportunity

to say that she's his ex-wife

right yeah the mailman comes to the door

and she and he says i have mail for the

chief inspector and she says ex-chief

inspector

and he says sorry mrs willis and she

says x mrs willis and she walks out the

door with all of her bags packed

but now we cut to a yacht somewhere

which i think

in the mail he was getting an invitation

to this yacht or being told where to

meet oh you think so

i don't know for sure but that was my

suspicion okay

yeah i guess but jack and jillian are

toasting to inspector willis because

jillian hasn't been let in on the secret

yet but

jack reaches forward and rips her

necklace off and throws it into the

water this was one of the diamonds from

their heist

and she's confused why he would throw it

into the ocean but it turns out the

whole shipment was quartz

all the diamonds were fake and all the

diamonds that they returned

in the doppelganger plane were fake

because

willis took the diamonds in the first

place when he was in the vault with them

and he expects jack's help in selling

them and even though

he earlier criticized criminals who

steal things for selling them for way

less than they're worth

he sells 30 million dollars worth of

diamonds to jack for three million

dollars

well he initially says 1 million right

and

but jack counters with 3 million because

he's a fair

yeah he's not trying to take advantage

of him he's promised everyone on the

heist crew a tenth of it

yeah which if you divide 30 million 10

ways he's got a fair share now so

it because you said that that wasn't

nearly enough and

well also if you count the people

involved there's only

six right yeah

so okay so here's my problem with this

whole thing

at what point do they get together

and know what is happening does jack

know when he

finishes this heist that there are no

diamonds in his doppelganger plane

he knew beforehand how why did

i don't i think he was working with

willis before

i mean based on the ending that they

used the implication is that

he knew that willis was working with

jillian before jillian knew that they

were working together i don't think this

is true

okay so here's my theory is that

jack didn't know and he went through all

of this assuming that he would get

diamonds at the end and he

didn't which then led him to understand

that willist actually saw them and he

contacted willis

to say you're going to need a fence

maybe and so then

they got together and just go yeah and

decided how to deal with this

i like that ending better if that's the

explanation that that that was my

implication as well of jack says

something like he wouldn't know what to

do with them so he had to contact the

only person he

would know who would know what to do

right and i don't think it happened

until

after the heist because i think that the

only reason that we went through this

whole process because jack wouldn't have

bothered to do that

yeah if he knew that willis had stolen

them already because he could have

gotten shot

all sorts of things could have gone

wrong but i still would have liked for

maybe a moment where willis at the end

of the whole heist

he opens the thing and he says we're

gonna have to make a phone call or

i'm gonna have to talk to somebody i

need to reach out to willis or something

like that

to make it clear that it's like there's

a problem with what we got

and i suddenly know what's happening

but it also doesn't make sense for me

then unless he's like staying in

character

of his like alcoholism and his wife

leaving him

i think he wanted his wife to leave so

he could just retire with the money for

the doctor i think that is what he did

right but but that's not really clear to

me like because

because it didn't seem like they were in

a loveless marriage that's true

they don't they don't seem like she's

not like the typical movie nagging life

character she's just like poking fun at

him

and they're like having a battle of wits

it's not like they're they hate each

other

like like john cleese and his wife in a

fish called wanda right

like there's clear that there's problems

with this marriage but they love each

other well maybe in order for him to

commit a crime though

and get all this money he had to get rid

of his wife because

she wouldn't have approved yeah who

knows

anyway this film was directed by dawn

siegel

he directed two yeah sort of a lot of it

was

uh he directed two mules for sister

sarah

dirty harry charlie varrick escape from

alcatraz

i like charlie barrett that's a good one

i like dirty harry

i haven't seen dirty harry the director

peter hunt who directed one week

of who knows which shots he edited the

first few james bond films

and came back to direct her majesty's

secret service he also directed a movie

called

hypersapien people from another star

which is a belated e.t rip-off starring

ricky paul golden who is in macgyver

episode final approach

what about juvenile delinquents what

year do we get this lovely gem

it's late 80s okay way after the gt

train

uh it looks like what happens when

someone tries to jump on a bandwagon

that rolled through town four years ago

and then the director of just the final

tacked on scene was robert ellis miller

that's the only scene that he did from

this movie but he also directed

baltimore bullet for us earlier this

year

writer larry gilbert wrote oh god the

first oh god movie we'll have the sequel

soon

he also wrote movie movie and tootsie

and he wrote the screenplay for the

bedazzled remake with brendan frazier

and elizabeth hurley

uh the novel was written by derek

lambert this is the only thing on his

imdb page

burt reynolds was jack rhodes you know

from smokey and the bandit or

deliverance or the cannonball movies

he's great in boogie nights from paul

thomas anderson

and he plays himself in saints row three

the character is mayor burt reynolds

it's basically just the family guy joke

with uh with uh

mayor uh adam wesley he also plays

himself on archer

right which is great he was uh archer's

mother's boyfriend in an episode

where they talk a lot about the movie's

gator and white lightning

the episode is called the man from

jupiter which

i believe is a reference to the city of

jupiter florida which is where he

lived and passed away yeah jupiter

island leslie anne down was jillian

bromley

she was in 777 episodes of the bold and

the beautiful and 520 episodes of sunset

beach

she also played olga in the pink panther

strikes again so she may have been

brought on

when blake edwards was intending to

direct uh david niven was chief

inspector

cyril willis damn it cyril anytime i

hear the name cyril i think of that

character

he played dick charleston in murder by

death he was charles linton

in a few pink panther movies i think

three and he'll be back next year in sea

wolves

from the director of north sea hijack

yeah i'm actually really looking forward

to that

the cast is incredible and uh i liked

that director so

um and he also played sir james bond in

casino royale the 1967 film

which is maybe the worst james font

movie

um timothy west was nigel lawton

he's jeremy lister on gentleman jack i

recognize him right away

yeah not from gentleman jack which i do

like that show and

do now recognize him from that now that

you've said that

but uh he isn't ever after

oh he's the father he's the king uh he's

the king

he's the father of the the prince yeah

but but i guess that's what kings are

kings fathers of princess king charles i

think sure

let's go with charles i haven't seen

that movie in a long time oh

now we're gonna watch it patrick mcgee

was ernst mueller

he plays mr alexander in clockwork

orange which is the character who's in a

wheelchair the author who they torture

and manipulate yeah and he's basically

playing the part of anthony burgess in

the story

um he's also lord catigan and chariots

of fire

and he plays somebody in barry lyndon

but who remembers anyone from barry

lyndon other than

barry lyndon al matthews was ferguson

i forget who ferguson was that's the the

the black guy oh they were calling him

bob at the yeah

moulin rouge he didn't get a first name

on his imdb credit but he was sergeant

apone and aliens

uh he's master sergeant three and

tomorrow never dies so

i guess there's multiple master

sergeants in that movie but apone is a

yeah is a great character and he's also

the fire chief in superman three

joss ackland was inspector vanderveld

which i think is the guy who keeps

busting into

willis's office no no the uh vanderbilt

is the

amsterdam his his his opposite number in

amsterdam oh okay who he's coordinating

with

because he's on international it's not

it's on his jurisdiction so he's in the

room when they're checking the diamonds

yeah

yeah he played andre lycinco in red

october

he's the main bad guy in bogus journey

whose character name is

dinomolos which i thought was a very

weird name when i read it until i

realized that backwards it is ed solomon

which is one of the film's writers

wolf collar played hold on we also we

also have the

amazing his lethal weapon two part

joss ackland yeah he's he's the the head

of the

south uh like south african uh

diplomats oh okay and like he's like the

famous part of like when they're on the

boat and

he's waving his things his diplomatic

immunity

and glover like is like

just been revoked it blows him away

that's amazing uh i haven't watched the

second one as often as i should that's

the one with gary busey

uh that's the first one oh that was the

first one yeah the second one

is is about like the this south african

uh group operating inside the us i feel

like i've watched the first one

sparingly and the fourth one

a lot yeah and that's it the second one

is when they introduce joe pesci

oh okay we have wolf collar here as

de gourier or de gooyer

yeah he plays a lot of nazis

he was dietrich in raiders of the lost

ark he plays a german commander in

wonder woman pretty recently

and he was dr hoffman stahl in

robert downey jr's sherlock holmes 2.

douglas wilmer is the fake maxwell levy

or levy here i think he's the fake one

we never see we never see the real one

uh he played fanning and octopussy

and he played sherlock holmes in the

adventures of sherlock holmes

smarter brother which was written and

directed by gene wilder which i've never

seen

well he also played charlotte holmes

prior to that oh did he and i think that

that's one of the reasons he

cast him for that he came into that

that's funny but this film

i think the ending kind of screws it up

a lot because it over complicates things

and it means that people were lying to

each other when they didn't need to be

they could have just been scheming

together this whole time but instead

they're all playing tricks on each other

and jillian is for no reason being left

in the dark the whole time

yeah they didn't reinforce whatever the

right

solution was like like would jillian

have been upset if willis was like

i want to steal these diamonds and

you're going to help me no she's a

kleptomaniac she's a kleptomaniac she

wanted to help you there's no reason to

leave her out of all this

yeah i mean they leave it unclear as to

what

really happened or not what really

happened but when everybody knew what

yeah and because of that it's just

really

unsatisfying yeah just needed to

reinforce it

so many of these movies that they're

they're so focused with

surprising you with the ending that they

don't care that it makes a lot of sense

and they know that you're not going to

go back and watch it again so they're

just

like just accept us that we tricked you

and you didn't guess this ending

but even even then we still guessed it

at a certain point we were like

i feel like willis is gonna be like

behind all of this like he stole the

diamonds like

like somewhere at the like 20 minutes

from the end but i think we both said

that

i started to suspect that maybe that's

what's happening but

well and which is right but but not for

the reasons we thought

at least not in my opinion my in my

opinion he did this on his own

without roads involved and but he would

have to use roads later

yeah for it to be a profitable theft

yeah so the the first time around

i was pretty sure that they were in it

together and then

after sitting and thinking about it for

a while i came to the conclusion that

i'm like oh no

he did this and then you know rhodes

knew that he did this so he's

contacted him to say i will fence your

diamonds for you yeah i didn't get there

on my own i needed you to explain that

richard up or down that's going to be

down

i didn't think it was terrible but there

were a lot of little things that i was

just

bugging me and i still

do not understand what was going on with

that cigarette case i have two notes

about it

like saying i still don't know what's

happening like keep talking about it but

i don't know what it means

yeah it's very weird and just not really

all that interesting i i think i'd be

more interested in reading the book

sure and i tried to find it too before

we did this but

i was not able to jess up or down it's a

down

for all the same reasons yeah i'm right

there with you guys

richard where does this go in your

letterboxed uh it's gonna be pretty low

i

i'm gonna put this just below hollywood

knights

and just above holy moses

okay jess

yes uh i think i'm going

slightly higher than richard on that one

it's below the windows threshold

it's also below hollywood nights but

it's above

don't go in the house i think for me

this goes below the hollywood nights

and just above niginsky i think that's

everything for this one

if you guys have any thoughts you'd like

to share with us we are vintage video

pod on twitter facebook instagram and

letterboxed

where as i've said before you can find

each of our full movie rankings for the

year

we can also be found at

vintagevideopodcast.com

please consider rating us on itunes to

help people find the show and if you

take the time to leave us a review we

will thank you personally in an upcoming

episode

if you're feeling especially generous

you can support the show through

patreon.com

vintagevideopodcast on that note here's

a shout out for pdx in london thanks for

the kind words in your itunes review we

hope you continue to enjoy the show

thank you so much for listening and i

hope you'll join us next time when we'll

be discussing blues brothers

which imdb describes like so jake blues

just released from prison puts his old

band together

to save the catholic home where he and

his brother elwood were raised

[Music]

you