we're on a mission from god

wendy so i got that going darling

looks like 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

[Music]

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

over analyzing what you've seen and

spoiling what you haven't i'm patrick

o'reilly i'm jesse bayliss and i'm

richard wells and today marks the 40th

anniversary of the release of

the hunter on august 1 1980

it was written by ted layton and peter

hiams based on a book by christopher

keen

and ralph thorsen uncredited per

arbitration

was john rester zandro who evidently

discovered the story

and packaged the film directed by buzz

kulik

and released by paramount pictures in

1976

christopher keynes the hunter was

published richard link and william

levinson had written a script based on

the novel

which was rewritten by credited

screenwriter and intended director peter

hims

who was fired as director after his

draft was turned in as mcqueen tried to

replace him in the director's chair

which is the same [ __ ] he pulled on tom

horne i was just gonna say that's

exactly

this is like flashbacks of tom horne

yeah as with tom horn mcqueen reportedly

did a lot of directing on set which is

probably why he installed a tv movie

director in iam's place

lee marvin was at one point considered

for the role before mcqueen

but i feel like he's too old for it but

i feel like lee marvin was probably too

old

but i think i would have liked to have

seen lee marvin in this

yeah i think so maybe sally field turned

down the role of dottie

during filming in chicago mcqueen felt

particularly unwell and was diagnosed

with cancer about a month after they

wrapped filming

apparently there were rumors on the set

that he was dying which

eli wallach lent no credibility to until

it was confirmed by doctors

this would be mcqueen's final film

performance levar burton's part was an

afterthought in the script

added because mcqueen was a fan of

burton's work and thought he deserved

more roles

in the first draft of the script the

character that thorson reluctantly

invites into his home

and then tries to protect his family was

written for the dog

as a result the dog unfortunately has

very little to do and fired its agent

i made a part of that which part

you you be the judge so good job them

forward thinking in terms of like let's

look at the script how can we add

uh you know more minority you know

characters

but even specifically levar he was very

uh impressed by levar's work

but it's a little offensive that you

replace the dog with him

a little bit yeah i'm curious what his

previous work was that he was a fan of

because when i looked he really didn't

have very many roles aside from some tv

stuff

i would guess roots oh maybe but um i

don't know if that was before or after

1980.

i don't know that is a good question

google 77 77 that was probably 10.

so probably roots the movie begins with

a forward in an 1872 decision the united

states supreme court ruled that bail

bondsmen

may employ private citizens to act on

their behalf the court ruled that these

private citizens may pursue and

apprehend a bail violator

in another state or country and if

necessary may break and enter his house

for that purpose

with the arrival of civilization and the

closing of the american frontier in the

early 1900s

the bounty hunter became extinct but

someone forgot to tell ralph papa

thorson

but the law was still on the books yeah

and so how is

how is it extinct bounty hunting is

still alive and well

well this is after the movie too i feel

like

this was a reintroduction to bounty

hunting for the american public

that people forgot that this was a thing

and the only reason that we know about

it is because this movie came out

well renegade on the way to bounty

hunter what or

or i was gonna say midnight run yeah but

either way i those are all after this

i feel like they may have been inspired

by this to be like oh yeah i forgot that

was a job that people still have

but that last bit about the frontier is

the most interesting because it seems to

be a near direct reference to the

character mcqueen played earlier this

year

tom horn who was essentially a bounty

hunter that was put out of business and

to death

by the arrival of civilization also

to say that they can operate outside of

another country i mean isn't that up to

the other country

yes well that's the other funny thing

too is that it says

uh may pursue and apprehend a bail

violator in another state or country and

if necessary may break

and enter his house for that purpose so

if it's a female you're not allowed to

break it

but you can break into his there's no

female criminals

that's true none of them get caught

anyway

they're smarter

[Laughter]

so civilized were the people who put tom

horne to death that nobody even executed

him they developed a machine that

allowed him to carry out the sentence

himself

this is mcqueen's second biopic of the

year both essentially bounty hunters and

mcqueen drives a car very poorly in this

film

uh it was his suggestion as a joke on

his previous expert driving roles

but it's not based on thorson at all i

feel like i would have been really

offended when i watched the movie

and they're just like what a crappy

driver this guy was yeah i was kind of

like

this is bullet what happened yeah i

liked it i thought it was amazing

i don't know i i get i get that it's

funny but it was driving me crazy

when he's parallel parking so badly it

was just like i can't watch people do

this it makes me so angry

well then you should not watch me

parallel park

especially in my mini cooper which

should be easier

here parallel parking thorson backs into

a car several times

in front of its owner who doesn't care

enough for my taste

he also almost hits a baby a woman with

a baby

i i think it actually takes a lot of

skill to drive as badly as he does in

this movie because

you can tell he's like barely missing

things and

just going very close to people thorson

heads into a bar

and asks the bartender to tell tommy

price somebody's looking for him

she and then she goes like oh crap or

[ __ ] or something like that

and walks away and it was like but she

doesn't tell him that

she's gonna go get him or to hold on

it's like

what was your intention to just walk

away yeah that's true she doesn't come

back for a while

it's also weird that she didn't just say

i don't know what you're talking about

like

if you're trying to get him some

coverage just say no

because he can't go into the back room

of this establishment oh apparently he

can according to

no he can go into homes he can't go he

can't go literally anywhere he wants

he's like sorry i'm allowed to go on

this airplane i'm a bounty hunter

but if she if he if she is intending

to buy him some time she really should

just make up an excuse to find

a reason to go back there and just be

like hey get out of here yeah

she's like excuse me i gotta go fart in

the back rum

women problems she heads into the back

room to find tommy working on an opened

up pinball machine

giving us the impression that he's a

whiz with machines but for all the

appliances we see him work on over the

course of the film he never actually

fixes any of them the bartender tells

him to hightail it

because there's a cracker out there

looking for him and it's not a cop

he gives her a weird kiss before rushing

out the door he's like all right i'll

see you later mama and he grabs her chin

and kisses her on the lips i was like

that's strange

outside the back door thorson puts a gun

right up to tommy's forehead and

explains who

and what he is tommy thinks bounty

hunting sounds illegal

and thorson says not really thorson

backs into the same guy's car a couple

more times on his way out and the guy

shouts after him but doesn't pursue him

or anything he's just like oh

i guess my car's messed up i mean it's a

black guy in 1980 so yeah i think it's

more a testament to the time than

anything else

yeah he's like who's gonna who's gonna

believe you but uh it's also a guy

who we establish as he comes out has a

gun

and handcuffs right and he just arrested

somebody else

or it seems to have as they drive away

tommy is amused by thorson's

dysfunctional tape deck

warbling the opera music he was

listening to

[Music]

he accuses thorsen of kidnapping him and

then thorson presents him with a card

with a printing of the 1872 supreme

court decision on it

something he likely has to do often when

bail is given the person or persons

putting up said bail may exercise their

rights in person or by

agent they may pursue principle into

another state

may arrest them on the sabbath if

necessary may break and enter his home

man that's chicken [ __ ] i i feel though

that this should have been done in lieu

of the opening

credit scroll yeah it didn't need to

happen twice that's true

yeah because i was like oh we just heard

all this yeah uh tommy offers to fix the

tape deck

and we cut to a gas station where

tommy's just draped in the unspooled

tape

as thorson is filling the tank i think

that's what he's doing um i think i

thought he was putting water in the

radiator maybe that's what he's doing

who knows nobody knows you guys seem

pretty certain though

[Laughter]

thorson mocks tommy for his claims of

mechanical ability while repeatedly

trying to stuff

a loose piece of the car back together

as like a piece of foam that's hanging

off of the door frame

and he just keeps tucking it back up and

i was watching this with addie

and she pointed out as soon as they put

the camera in the back seat that

suddenly it's taped

closed and she's like oh the thing's not

hanging anymore and then they start

driving again and it's hanging again

she's like it's hanging again

like that's a whole job eddie you could

do that tommy asks how he found him and

mcqueen explains that someone put their

house up as bail

and so they told them where to find him

he's furious that this person who staked

their house on trusting him to appear in

court would rat on him

it's like uh would they would you rather

they just surrender their home

that's not really a [ __ ] move on their

part that's really you

will i go to jail papi i don't know

thorson parks shitley in front of the

police station and tommy jokes

who taught you how to drive leon spinks

i don't get this joke i don't either uh

i looked it up sphinx is a professional

boxer but

i don't know what the joke is that's

being made unless he's just punching the

car

with his car maybe he's a notoriously

bad driver uh he or maybe he's just

fighting with the car i don't know who

knows

inside the station thorson tries to

collect the bounty paperwork for billy

joe page i think he says page

the cop says that he ought to talk to

the sheriff about this particular bounty

and thorson heads upstairs to a very

unconvincing office

it's clearly a set for tv but on film it

looks awful

instead of windows the office is wrapped

in backlit photos of a city skyline with

very clear seams in it

the sheriff says i've heard a lot about

you thorson all bad

and then he tells him to leave town

without billy joe

thorson's not interested in doing that

until the sheriff pulls a revolver out

of his desk

and he says goodbye mr thorsen bye sure

he's just

right on board with it all right he

steps out of the office but then he pops

back in for a second looking a little

confused and the sheriff says

because he's my nephew and he just nods

an understanding and leaves again i

i like this scene because it felt very

cartoony to me like when

you know cartoon walks in sees something

dangerous and walks right

yeah the grandpa simpson

[Laughter]

thorson drives immediately to billy

joe's place and parks the car

handcuffing tommy to the steering wheel

i kept thinking tommy's tech savvy would

lead to him escaping here or hot wiring

the car but it never does

yeah since he has a tool kit on him well

that would have

meant thinking deeper than you know

replacing the dog character

because handcuffing the dog is like

there's no way a dog could figure out

how to get out of the handcuffs

but wouldn't that make it that much more

fun

he grabs what he calls a stun gun out of

the trunk and loads it up with a bean

bag

this is actually what stun guns were

before they were electric i didn't know

that until i looked it up but

apparently stun guns were actually like

bean bag

oh there's a lot of bean bags guys i was

gonna say they still have guns like this

that should be right bean bags but

the word stun gun was initially used for

these things

before they started making the electric

stun guns

on approach thorson leaves the stun gun

outside the back door

and begins sneaking through the house

the music as he's sneaking around

reminds me a little bit of like a john

carpenter score there's like a dainty

little piano thing going on

[Music]

uh he does this weird move where he

dives to the floor and starts playing

with the electric train

i was like this is kind of weird but

then later on oh

i guess that kind of makes sense when he

did that because he's obsessed with old

toys

yeah i forgot about that until just now

and i'm like okay finally that makes

sense because when it was happening like

why is he doing this

he's probably trying to get like the

model or something of it like he's like

oh this is pretty cool

potentially gonna take this while i

leave thorson stages himself outside

billy joe's room with mace

but before he can even knock billy joe

smashes the door down crushing thorsen

and it seems like breaking the mace

container because it's just dripping

after that but before he breaks it

he sort of sprays it in the air almost

like it's perfume like i don't really

understand if

is is he testing it to make sure it

works or maybe there's that's like a way

to use it is to like

fill an area and have him walk through

that space so he has just the hint of

pepper spray on him

just a hint put a little bit behind the

ears

that'd be a good way to show that

someone's like a badass as they use like

pepper spray as banaca

all good he tosses thorson around the

room demolishing the entire kitchen

while thorson scrambles to fight back

with a knee to the balls or a full bowl

of flour to the face

until billy joe tosses him through the

back door that he entered through

meanwhile billy joel uh billy keep when

i say billy joel

billy joe's girlfriend is cheering him

on yeah she just came out with like a

blanket wrapped around her

and uh yeah except she looks like she's

five years old i was

really concerned about this but she's

also enjoying this fight because the

house is just getting destroyed and

she's like great i hated having a

kitchen

yeah there's some weird features to this

fight yeah like a bowl

of flower that's just sitting there on

the table that gets used as a weapon

yeah they were going to do something

with it later maybe i don't know why

there's bowl of flowers sitting out

but now on the ground thorson crawls to

this stun gun and when billy joe appears

in the doorway thorson nails him right

in the ribs with a little

red macaroon that's what it looks like

it's a bean bag apparently uh he's

knocked out and his girlfriend dressed

in only a blanket tries to wake him

hey that ain't fair

you pet head boy joe billy joe wake up

billy joe

wake up billy joe wake up the sheriff is

getting his hair cut

in his office when thorson calls him

back to announce that he is leaving town

the sheriff says that's a smart move and

then thorson adds

except one thing i'm taking your nephew

with me i do kind of like that the

sheriff

accepts what happened here it's just

like you've done a good job

well this is this is the first of what i

thought the plot of this movie was going

to be about

yeah the sheriff trying to get like

revenge on him somehow yeah and i was

like yeah i was like why the hell would

you call him

um this is gonna be the terrible setup

for the plot of this movie is that he's

gonna be

pursued by this sheriff all the way it's

gonna be it's gonna be midnight run but

instead of you know all these other

people after them it's just gonna be

this crooked sheriff

yeah it would have made more sense if it

was someone from the station calling to

say hey we're processing your nephew

right now

but he says you've done a good job you

was doing your duty and i was protecting

my kin

though he does tack on a little threat

at the end inviting thorson to come see

him the next time he's in town

thorson's like yeah yeah i'll do that

i'll be right by

and then he exits the movie never to be

seen again yeah thorson by the way is

making this call on a pay phone that he

just pulled the car

up to and he could barely reach it from

the driver's seat so he's like

almost falling out of the car to hang it

up he drives back to los angeles with

both of his captives

i like when he pulls away because the

billy joe is super big and heavy and the

car is just like completely tilted to

one side because

like both uh fugitives are in the back

seat

and uh billy joe's on the same side uh

as

he's on the driver's side yeah he's on

the driver's side so that side's weighed

down really heavy the other side's like

high up in the air but he's also

sticking like

two feet above everybody else in the car

well luckily it's a convertible

otherwise i feel like he'd be hitting

his head on the roof he just wouldn't

fit in it

also how how many uh hours is it from

houston to los angeles

it's quite a drive you can make it in

about eight hours

i i don't think we made it back from

arizona in eight hours that's true

as he fills out paperwork to collect his

bounties thorson is approached by a cop

impressed by his catch

who invites him to try a more

respectable job which is essentially the

same conversation he had earlier this

year in tom horne

when the local lawman offers him the

protection of working for the law proper

but again he doesn't want to have a boss

he likes the way his life works

tommy's clearly shaken by his impending

courtroom appearance and thorson slips

him a piece of paper with his info

and says tell the judge that you have a

job with me when you get out at first

what i thought he meant by this was when

you get out of prison

yeah that's what i think he meant that

is what he meant no but i mean like like

he's going to be going away to prison

for like years

yeah i think he was saying tell the

judge that and then when he gets back to

his house and

and the kid's there he says oh the judge

just let me go because you said that

oh okay yeah back on his own home street

a couple of cars full of mexicans are

honking and shouting greetings to papa

he seems like he's a neighborhood

favorite though a man across the street

in a vw bus seems less fond of him

thorson's living room is overflowing

with people the crowd playing poker

around his dinner table invite him to

join

and he says better not he heads back

into his bedroom to find his

girlfriend wife i think she's a

girlfriend girlfriend because they make

a deal about how they're not yeah

uh her name's dottie and she's asleep

and eight months pregnant yeah i wasn't

clear when he walked in though

as to what their relationship was

because i was pretty sure i'm like okay

well she's definitely young enough to be

his daughter

yeah and then he goes and snuggles up to

her in a way you don't snuggle your

daughter and it was super creepy yeah

but she's good 20 years younger than him

uh he surprises her with an original

buck rogers rocket patrol toy

and she does not appreciate it enough i

was like is that a rocket in your pocket

are you just happy to see it

oh it's a rock when i was watching it

with eddie she was like

why didn't why didn't she like the toy

that was a pretty cool toy

apparently this is all like steve

mcqueen's actual toys like the toy

collection in the movie is actually his

collection

so it's another thing that he was like

hey why don't we do this thing that

thorson didn't do

she reminds him that they have lamaze

class tonight and he says he needs to

pick up winston blue this afternoon and

she says winston that's three times this

month

winston's place is surrounded by police

trying to clear the area

for whatever reason they've determined

that he's a dangerous criminal and

likely armed

thorson steals the police megaphone for

a moment and shouts up

hey winston they make it seem like these

criminals just love surrendering to papa

probably because he treats them better

than the cops do but it's clearly an

affectionate nickname

i'm really bothered by this scene

because it kind of just goes on and

progresses without us understanding

why this person had a gazillion cops

you know aiming they like they had

sharpshooters on top of the building

aiming at this guy and i'm like

what happened into this i also get the

impression that all the people in his

house are

just a collection of criminals that he's

apprehended and given jobs to

is that what that is i was super

confused i thought they were roommates

at first

like that like like the implication was

that he's so

poor from this is his job that he has to

live with like eight other guys and his

pregnant girlfriend

no i i think it's that these are all

people that were down on their luck and

he offered them a place to stay and work

to do

someone comes to the balcony outside

winston's room and says

don't make such a fuss for heaven's sake

he's dressing

and the crowd gets a real kick out of

this winston eventually comes out in

like a full pimp outfit

and the whole team of cops have guns

trained on him it's actually really

nerve-wracking

yeah i was like any minute now he's

gonna make the wrong move right

yeah but he's not taking it very

seriously and he for some reason doesn't

expect any itchy trigger fingers even

though this is the lapd

the cops cuff him and thorson heads back

to the bail bondsman's office

where he gets all of his jobs from an

italian couple are speaking with

thorson's contact richie blumenthal

about their son

anthony who's on the lamb he reminds

them that their son is running out of

time to turn himself in

and if he doesn't that the restaurant

that the bernardos have put us

collateral

will become richie's property he says he

already has two restaurants and he

doesn't want another one

i'm assuming he could just sell it

though if you wanted to but probably not

for

as much as it's actually worth yeah

blumenthal recommends that they contract

a bounty hunter specifically thorson to

retrieve their son and get him to court

richie and thorson head out for lunch

where thorson reminds him

you owe me 800 for price and a thousand

for billy joe

richie tries to make a baby gift of the

bernardo kid but thorson is looking at

the branch brothers

that's who he wants to bring in he says

oh my dog could give me the branch

brothers

but he wins this argument and thorson

gets a call

in the restaurant from someone named

mason threatening to kill him

after the phone call ends we see mason

hanging up the phone across the

restaurant so he's here watching him now

yeah so again uh is the plot of this

movie going to be

the the crooked sheriff who wants who

wants revenge

is it going to be going after the branch

brothers or this bernardo guy or is it

going to be this mason guy what's the

plot of this movie going to be yeah and

there's

there's another thread that's dropped

here too where richie says something

like

hey so what's up with that cop guy

because like the cop that he spoke to

earlier that said oh you should get a

respectable job

was here in the restaurant like hassling

him yeah he's like you heard anything

about that cop

i don't know i just hear some things and

he's like yeah i don't know what you're

talking about

um is that the cop that we come back to

later yes okay

at home thorson is in crosshairs as he

exits his car

inside the house tommy lives here now

and has helpfully disassembled the

television because the picture was no

good

the picture was perfect no see the color

was off i'm fixing it

he asks one of his other live-in

criminals who mason might be

and after a few guesses he gets to rocco

mason who apparently spent some time in

an asylum

they had to submerge him in thorazine

that's how the guy describes his

treatment

in his bedroom he tells dottie that he's

leaving town but he'll still go to le

mans class with her

but she'll have to drop him off at the

airport afterward also here's a gun

yeah he tells he tells her about this

weird call and hands her a noisy cricket

and asks if she remembers how to use it

but it's funny because he's like you

remember how to shoot this right and she

was like yeah

[Laughter]

this woman is handling being eight

months pregnant with a house full of

strangers and absentee boyfriend a

full-time job and routine death threats

like a champ

on the way to lamaze thorson criticizes

her driving and she shuts it down right

away

inside thorson makes it clear that he's

not interested in participating

but the woman running the lamaze class

kind of forces him into it against his

will

he tries to like blame his bad back and

she's like oh i know but it's so great

what you're doing for her and just like

brings him down to the ground like

now just put your hands here it's just

like he was clearly trying to your back

hurts

yeah thorson lands the next day in

nebraska

where he's handed the keys to a black

trans am with only 78 miles on it

he's trying to ask her for an older car

and she walks away

um i like my note here because i

i was like he's given a transom what the

hell is a transom

it's like oh it's trans i just wrote it

as one word

dottie is working in her classroom when

a whispering voice outside the door

makes death threat riddles

pilots are blue roses are red

there's no school today whoever you are

you're a jerk

because

and she rushes to lock all the doors

suddenly rocco's face fills the window

in the door

and he's painted with native american

markings and his eyes are closed and

he's just screaming into the window papa

mason said soon

real soon

[Music]

it's it was like really upsetting

it's very genuine nightmare fuel and uh

dottie reacts to this image i would say

appropriately by just screaming along

with him because

i don't know what's happening why is

this happening thorson chats with a cop

at the branch brother's hometown and i

can't tell what the guy says here

but he says oh yeah i know who you're

talking about those brothers are

dumb as [ __ ] and meat is what i think he

says but it's also possible he says

dumb as [ __ ] and me branch brothers

sure crazy bastards dumb as [ __ ]

and mean i can't tell what he says but i

hope it's the latter because that makes

me laugh harder

uh he gives thorson directions to find

them but he refuses to offer any cops to

help bring him in

dottie finishes speaking with the police

about the in-person death threat from

the maniac her husband warned her about

yesterday and thinks it's no big deal

it's probably just a crazy person she

says the principal offers a substitute

for the day

not like the rest of her pregnancy but

just today and dottie says no

don't worry about it it was nothing

thorson pulls up to the branch brothers

farm

and things get weird

he approaches the house as bundles of

dynamite with lit fuses are just being

tossed into the lawn around him

he evades them a few times before the

branch brothers blow past him

into their own cornfield with his rental

car

he pursues them with the only vehicle

left their combine harvester

this leads to a longer than necessary

low speed chase

between the car and combine unclear why

these guys are so cool with destroying

their own cornfield

but it seems like some pretty neat stunt

driving as the two vehicles circle

blindly through the crops narrowly

missing each other repeatedly

it's it's a pretty cool overhead shot so

you just get to see

and and the the car that they're driving

is black and so it really kind of blends

in so you kind of just see this

you just see the line folding over in

this line as the

as the combine comes around and follows

that line of folded corn

the brothers even try to toss dynamite

into their own combine before blasting

out of the field onto the road

one of the brothers drops more dynamite

in the road and they think they're home

free

until the combine appears ahead of them

and they slam it into reverse

eventually backing over their own

dynamite and blasting the trans am to

pieces

i'm pretty sure they would have died in

this explosion i i thought for sure that

they were dead until they were

cartoonishly brought in bandages

uh we cut to the car rental place where

thorson is returning just

pieces of the car on a flatbed truck and

he hands the keys to the woman who gave

them to him

we see the mexican neighbors dropping

papa off at home

and dottie shares a story from lamaze

about a woman who

almost went into premature labor until

her husband started coaching her

breathing and possibly saved the baby's

life

thorson heads to check on his friend

pete i think is the first name what's

that pizza spada and this is the cop

that we saw before

he's drinking very heavily and carrying

a handgun around his apartment

he stumbles to his balcony and he

pretends to shoot at a suspect that he

can see from his own apartment

he complains about how he can't get any

charges to stick to this guy

so in frustration he stole drugs from

the evidence locker to sell himself

since it's so hard to get caught but

somehow word got around what he did and

he'll probably be losing his job soon

pete invites thorson to drink with him

intending later to kill himself because

cops don't fare very well in prison

thorson obliges him do you think thorson

kills him

no no but i think he's he might be there

when it happens

i think he saw him through to the end

potentially i think he it seems like

he's he tries to talk him down for a

while and it doesn't work

and eventually he you know he offers

like oh grab that other bottle let's

finish it off and then i'll kill myself

afterwards and

and he goes and gets the other bottle

and they both start drinking together

and he pours a hefty drink

for himself so i suspect he just sort of

understands that

yeah if i were in your situation this is

what i'd want to so i'm just going to

let this happen

i feel like what we could have used in

this scene is just a shot of him in the

car

like thinking to himself like am i going

to go back in or am i not going to go

back in and then you just hear a gunshot

and then he starts the car to drive away

but they didn't want to punctuate

the suicide with him grinding the gears

of this car and not knowing how to pull

it out of the

garage where he just slammed it into the

guy's house

we go back to the living room where

thorson comes in very drunk

and kicks out everybody but dottie he

has a very nasty fight with her about

the baby

and says that it's wrong to bring a

child into the world they continue an

argument we weren't privy to about an

abortion that he apparently urged her to

have earlier in the pregnancy

she says that it wasn't his decision and

he says well both of us should have been

involved in the decision and she says

both of us don't get an abortion ralph

he leaves to head to the bar

word comes from the bartender that

spotted killed himself i don't know how

they knew to tell him that but

someone at the bar finds out and the

bartender knows him well enough to be

like

hey this happened but it doesn't seem

like he's surprised by it so i think he

was either there when it happened

or he was 100 sure that it was going to

happen when he left yeah the man playing

the bartender here is the real life

ralph papa thorson we cut to the next

morning where

thorson is waking up in his car looking

confused and heads home

in the kitchen tommy has the toaster

open just ruining it

and he tells thorsten that toddy's in

her room in the bedroom

she says that she heard about spada but

she's still upset about what he said

and she says if you don't want me and

you don't want the baby we don't want

you

and she leaves the score here feels very

melodramatic and old-fashioned for an

80s movie

presumably days later richie comes to

visit thorson at two in the afternoon

waking him up uh he's literally climbing

through his bedroom window because i

assume no one answered the door for a

while

which is weird because i thought tommy

was there yeah maybe who knows

uh richie's trying to sell thorson on

bernardo

as a as a potential bounty again it's

eight thousand dollars which is a lot

it's the biggest bounty that we've heard

in this movie

it was only three thousand for the

branch brothers and they had a lot of

dynamite

thorson gives in to the demand and heads

to dottie's class to tell her that he's

going to chicago

but he'll be back in a few days she says

she might not be home when he gets back

has hasn't she not been home already

yeah yeah but i mean i think he's coming

to try to make peace with her

yeah you know which is why he starts off

the conversation with i did the shopping

you know like hey i'm you know that was

his version of i'm sorry please come

home

yeah as soon as thorson gets into

bernardo's apartment

in chicago bernardo is blasting a

shotgun through the door

thorson fires back with a handgun and

wastes a lot of bullets

yeah shooting past the kid

it didn't seem necessary because he's

clearly not trying to hit him he needs

to collect this kid

bernardo gets up on the roof and they

chase from building the building for a

bit

bernardo climbs down to the street and

runs under the train to a barbed wire

fence

and then he just turns off into the city

he crashes into an old woman

and is nearly hit by a couple of cars

trying to lose thorson before slipping

onto a train just as it leaves the

station

but then he notices that thorson also

made it to the train and so he grabs a

nearby kid and puts a gun to her head

before turning to frantically shoot

another passenger in the heart

and for sure kill this person so he's

already murdered one person on this

train

and then he fires four more shots like

down train through windows

which would clearly have hit other

people because it's a very crowded train

yeah the collateral damage that happens

in this movie is pretty incredible like

i can't believe that

uh thorson gets away with all of this

stuff yeah scot-free like

how does he not get arrested for the

consequences of his actions

yeah because this is the scene where the

cop gets back to the station he's

getting chewed out by the chief

for screwing up and you know blowing up

a whole square block or whatever

yeah but for some reason thorson doesn't

have to deal with any of that

he's not police yeah and the other guy

was the one doing the shooting

mostly yeah thorson gets up on top of

the train

when he's trying to evade bernardo's

shots and he fires nine more bullets

through the roof at thorson yeah i was

wondering how many bullets that were in

this right yeah i'm gone

the ball count did not line up right

thorson accidentally yanks

a metal bar loose from the train roof

and then it swings off the side of the

train and he's just

dangling precariously off the side i

guess uh this train was actually moving

at about 40 miles per hour when they had

i think it was a stunt guy that was

doing it but

that's still crazy that they let someone

hang off the l train yeah

bernardo sees him out the window and

fires a 14th shot at him without having

reloaded

thorson has to squat low on the train as

it enters a tunnel

and the guy driving the train skips the

intended stop so bernardo

yanks the emergency brake before running

away into the dark tunnel

and thorson follows him and then the

train just starts right back up

yeah yeah i don't know if a train can do

that when the emergency brakes slam it

shut

but also like in terms of the choices

that the conductor has

at this point like there was there was

obviously shooting on the train

and i don't know where that gunman is

and i don't know where that other person

that was crawling on top of the train is

would you just take off or would you

continue to stop

assuming that if the gunman is still on

the train i don't want this train moving

i want to be stopped to try to get

people

out of here yeah but either way he just

he just books it as soon as the guy hops

off maybe he could see that he left

and he was just like let's get these

people as far away from these guns it's

also

i guess to me it would be a dangerous

situation if he's in an unscheduled

position inside the tracks

yeah maybe that means like i better get

this train out of here yeah because

i don't know what's coming or he's like

i gotta head back to that station we

skipped

because those people are gonna be mad i

i do love

just like the the crowd talking

throughout the whole

hostage ordeal until one person just

says oh god when is it going to end

and i was like man i'm with you on this

this chase is going on

when they drive through the station and

miss people there's there's a bunch of

people standing on the tracks are like

oh where's it going it didn't stop and

then one guy's like there's a guy on top

of the train

um above ground the camera tilts up on a

100 story looking parking structure

bernardo steals a car and thorson steals

a tow truck

and a spiral chase takes them to the top

of this tower

this is this is marina city apparently

yeah um i did some

very minor research because i was like

what are these buildings um i think

there are apartments

um but right beneath in the river and

you see it for a moment

is that you can just pull your boats

right up and park your boats underneath

these buildings

yeah they're still there the tow truck

obviously doesn't fit as well as the car

and thorson is smashing it on the way up

into a lot more than eight thousand

dollars worth of cars yeah

like again where are the consequences

like how does he walk away from this

with nobody

you know coming after him for all of the

damage he does

eventually there's a guy coming down in

a pretty nice car and he just

tears the crap out of it as he's trying

to pull around it on his way up

but the guy is just comically silent

watching this damage being done to his

own vehicle

bernardo gets to i guess the top or

somewhere that he can't get past before

he turns around

and he's racing downward as thorson is

racing upward

and then to avoid a head-on collision he

just swerves and drives it out of the

structure and plummets many stories into

the river

i guarantee they didn't retrieve this

car either it lives underwater with

herbie now

[Laughter]

thorson gets home to find tommy beat to

[ __ ] in the kitchen and bleeding all

over everything

so did he die tommy no the the the

bernardo oh for sure

because the dynamite guys survived they

got blown up by a stick of dynamite

that guy wasn't making it out of that

river they just cut to him like driving

with a car covered in seaweed on a

flatbed

tommy says that rocco took dottie and

that he said something about school

i feel like if i were rocco and i really

wanted him to come to the school i would

be more specific like

tell him we went to the school thorson

heads directly to her classroom

this is after hours obviously and he

finds her tied to a chair and moves to

untie her

when rocco surprises him from the

darkness with a big gun

rocco makes thorson ditch all of his

weapons and then a security guard enters

the room and says

what's going on before he gets shot to

pieces by rocco

thorson takes this opportunity to run

yeah he just runs away from his pregnant

wife

uh and a chase through the school

commences i mean i think he was trying

to lure him away

because he knew he would follow him he

moves into a science lab

and he starts cranking up all the bunsen

burners eventually rocco figures out

what rummy's in

and when he steps inside thorson pushes

a rolling skeleton toward him

and he fires his gun igniting the gas

and the whole classroom explodes

it's not a hundred percent clear that he

died in this explosion but yeah we don't

see him again so he must have

yeah i still like would have put a

little bit more

urgency in the let's get the freak out

of here because

that guy is gonna come out and he's

gonna be a flaming man with a machine

gun he's shooting at us so let's get out

of here

it's interesting though that we don't go

any further in depth into this guy's

motivation or backstage oh yeah

it's just no he blew up he was crazy and

he blew up that's the story

uh thorson rushes down to dottie and her

water has broken so he gets her to the

car to rush her to the hospital

she thinks it's time to start pushing

but he remembers her story from lamaze

and tries to encourage her to blow

instead

and relax and she says oh it's coming

no he gets to the hospital

and rushes inside for assistance once

he's conveyed the message that she's

giving birth in the car he collapses in

the hospital lobby

by the time he comes to the doctors are

seeing to dottie

and the baby is already born by the time

he gets to the car the doctors just take

it away from dottie when they find out

he's the father and hand him the kid

without asking her or anything

the baby sneezes and he says god bless

you and that's the end of the film

christopher kane's novel was followed by

a 2000 sequel

called the huntress that focuses on

dottie and his daughter

taking over the business of bounty

hunting in the wake of papa's

1991 death by car bomb so this character

actually died

on the job eleven years after this movie

came out

it was adapted into a usa series

starring annette o'toole

and jordana spiro as the widow and

daughter of thorson i love oneida tool

and i like jordana spiro the show also

features chris pratt as a regular

character named nick owens but i have no

idea what his relation to

the rest of the character what year was

this because that means 2 000.

oh i guess maybe not our director here

was buzz kulik

this was his last feature though he is

an uncredited director on next year's

the pursuit of db cooper he previously

directed brian's song

and a lot of tv movies and a couple

twilight zones also

writer ted layton this was his only

feature script and he had a handful of

tv

episodes writer peter hiams yeah

directed 2010 outland time cop end of

days

he wrote 2010 and outland yeah and he

also wrote and directed the star chamber

yeah capricorn won one of my favorites

it's like he's he he's hitting all the

space movies

yeah a lot of stuff the novel was

christopher keane and his other notable

credit was

for the huntress uh steve mcqueen was

papa thorsen here we had him as tom horn

earlier this year and he's in

the great escape papione bullet the

getaway uh he was in the magnificent

seven twenty years earlier

eli wallach was richie blumenthal he was

also in the magnificent seven twenty

years earlier

he's also tuco from the good the bad and

the ugly he plays don

altabello in godfather part three and he

was cotton weinberger in the two jakes

catherine harold was dotty she plays

monique and raw deal

she plays mary harvard in modern romance

francine sanders ex-wife of larry

sanders on the larry sanders show

and hannah in the pursuit of db cooper

potentially ghost directed by

our director here levar burton was tommy

price he was kunta kinte on roots he was

jordi laforge

on star trek the next generation and a

bunch of other star treks including

hopefully picard

soon has he been on picard yet um i

actually still haven't finished the last

two episodes okay

i'm waiting for her next trip to arizona

yeah that's an inside joke people sorry

no but um i think it got picked up for

two more seasons

did it really i'm not surprised uh he

was also obviously on reading rainbow he

was the host of reading rainbow

and he was the voice of kwame bearer of

the earth ring on captain planet

ben johnson was sheriff strong that's

the guy whose nephew is billy joe

he plays tekter gorch in the wild bunch

which i think

somewhere in the film eli wallach refers

to the branch brothers as the wild bunch

your children

they're little boys they don't even

shave yet

hey there's a wild bunch so that's funny

that they have

a member of that cast in here he was

also sam the lion in the last picture

show

and jack bainen and the getaway

tracy walter was rocco mason he's

obviously bob the goon and batman

he plays miller and repo man he's moloch

in conan the destroyer cookie and city

slickers

and he's a speedboat salesman in matilda

he's not a speedboat salesman yeah he is

he said he was a speedboat salesman

i like him it's him and paul rubins

right yeah the two uh

two burton regulars and they're being

directed in that movie by penguin

another bird yeah thomas rosales jr was

bernardo

he plays vince in speed he plays carter

in jurassic park the lost world he's an

oil worker in tremors 2

and he plays charles lafond in macgyver

episode the spoilers that's the one with

earthquake toberman

okay uh i think he's the guy that runs

the chemical company that might even be

called

the chemical company or something like

that were they poisoned his dog

yeah they they killed this dog it's

basically

just john wick before john wick james

spanx

played the angry car owner not related

to leon spinks

he plays hippo and car wash he was tracy

stewart in mo

money and he plays technician number one

in the omen 2.

frank delfino is one of the poker

players don't know which one

but he plays the child ape from planet

of the apes

he plays the auctioneer in willy wonka

who's selling the last box of

chocolate bars and he's also he was the

hamburglar on a tv series called

mcdonald land

i think it was a voice i think it was an

animated series michael d

roberts is another one of the poker

players he plays vern

and rain man and he plays two very

important macgyver characters

dr radem tour the zombie maker okay

and booker from the challenge the

challenge

he gets the uh the colombian necktie in

that episode i forgot oh my god darkest

macgyver episode ever

and he also played maddie in a star is

born the recent

adaptation f william parker was the

watch commander

he plays captain luno in lost highway he

was

sergeant in revenge of the nerds and he

plays

a doctor in terms of endearment tony

burton was garbage man too

i don't remember the garbage man in this

movie but tony burton was garbage man

too

he was apollo's trainer duke in six

rocky movies

he also played durkin in the shining

that's scat man's friend who rents him

the snow cat

okay and he'll be back later this year

and stir crazy and inside moves

taurine black played hustler he plays

laidlaw in deep star six

he's the voice of roscoe in oliver and

company and he plays a lawyer in rocky

ii joffery c brown was a train passenger

not sure which one he has lots of stunt

work credits but he's also

the guy who gets eaten by a raptor at

the beginning of the first jurassic park

film

that's two jurassic park people then

yeah is he perhaps the stunt guy who's

hanging off

of the train potentially and al russio

was mr bernardo he plays leo cunyo and

godfather three so a second godfather

three credit

he's mr carlman in showgirls and he

plays the police commissioner in the

movie

the phantom the billy zane one not the

ben affleck one

watch your pronouns and your pluralities

what do you think jess

it's up or down man this was a very

middle-of-the-road movie

yeah it's hard to say up or down because

i didn't

dislike it but there wasn't anything

super special here

yeah i guess my up and downs come down

to would i tell somebody else to watch

this and i probably wouldn't

so i'm gonna give it a down i think i

would also give it a down although i do

have to say

i haven't seen katherine harold in a lot

of stuff and i thought she was great in

this movie

yeah um i get why uh they couldn't get

sally field i understand why sally field

turned it down because

it's not the central character and

there's not like a lot of emotion for

that character

and she was she was pretty known at that

point yeah smoking the bandit

but i i did think it was it was an

interesting choice for her to not be

phased by any of this especially in her

condition to just be like

yeah no that's fine like in a normal

movie the wife character would just be

pissed off about this stuff happening at

all even if she wasn't pregnant

no i mean i think that was a great

choice because clearly that's the person

who would be with him for this long

right and clearly in real life

the kind of person who was with him

because she took over the business of

bounty hunting when he left

in real life she wasn't a teacher she

was a caseworker who brought him

people to consider and to and to look

for so in real life did she then also

take over

yes in real life she took over the

business him her

and his daughter took over the business

of bounty hunting okay i didn't know if

that was a dramatization for the second

book that was that really happened

it was also based on reality i mean

obviously the the tv show

dramatizes it further but it was a real

thing that happened and then they

just made it into a series i would give

it a down um i

i this movie didn't really resonate any

kind of real emotions with me it's kind

of a mess

in my opinion yeah with all these like

possible plots and then the main plot

just has to get wrapped up real quick

because there was only 10 minutes left

of the movie and he comes back from this

other

like crazy chase that has nothing to do

with what i think the plot

of the movie is yeah i i don't know

honestly what the main plot is because

there's like four competing plots and

they wrap up very quickly

and none of them gets a solid bow like

the guy killing himself we're not even

sure what happened there

the kid dying in the river we don't know

what happened there

i also think that they deserved to put a

little bit more emphasis on the fact

that he's taking

a lot of really risky jobs right now

because he needs

money and they don't really emphasize

why

because honestly he seems to have a big

house this seems to be an abundance of

you know work for him like it doesn't

seem like there's any real urgency for

why he's taking so many risks right now

yeah

and and like we said just there's

there's four plots happening

simultaneously

and none of them get any kind of closure

really

well they they did blow up a guy which

guy did they blow up well we don't know

what happened to that guy we just know

they went straight to the hospital and

had a baby

after that that's true i mean i think

this the assumption is that yes that guy

died in that explosion but

we don't really know why he was so mad

at thorson because they never go into it

i mean presumably he brought him in but

everybody else seems to love getting

brought to the

yeah i think they tried too hard to make

him a likable character

and they were just like well he's a

bounty hunter so

people like him because it's like he's

outside the law but he gets things done

and let's say the criminals like him too

well why would they like him i don't

know he's just friendly

it's like but he's isn't he really good

at arresting them and taking them to

jail

yeah but like it's cool the way he does

it so they like it

i feel like they wouldn't they wouldn't

like him so much yeah

i think this is a sad note to go out on

and it's also retreading

so much of what he did in tom horne

which i think is

although we although it has its own

flaws a superior movie

i agree letterbox where's this going

richard

um i have this pretty low um i have this

beneath rough cut and just above little

dragons

oh gosh so this puts it as number 65

it's low

little dragons i think for me this is

going to go

just between just tell me what you want

and a small circle of friends

so just under just tell me what you want

and just above a small circle of friends

how far just tell me what you want has

come

[Laughter]

i really hated that movie at the

beginning but and now i learned

it's not as bad as some other movies in

1980

all right this is just below hangar 18

and just above holy moses for me

all right i think that's about

everything for this one if you guys have

any thoughts you'd like to share with us

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vintage video podcast thank you so much

for listening and i hope you'll join us

next time

when we'll be discussing loose shoes aka

coming attractions

which imdb describes like so broad

satire and buffoonery presented as a

series of movie trailers

we leave you now with the trailer for

some trailers

they came empty-handed but left with a

fistful

invasion of the penis snatchers

here's a movie that makes mel brooks's

humor seems sophisticated

woody allen's statuesque

it's loose shoes a movie about

ordinary people who get better fight

[Music]

back

with bill murray

[Music]

what the hell is this crap you call this

quiche it's slap

and this boy of ace is nothing but trite

that's right yeah

we'll make this chocolate mousse you

gotta use real cream

oh you don't make it at all you know

what i mean wkrp's howard hesmond

yeah all these guys came back to tell

their stories

buddy a society to oppress and prevent

involuntary tinkling jp

won't stop kissing avery schreiber my

feet's just killing me

and a few surprise guests

[Music]

that's it bring your friends or come

alone

but don't miss loose shoes

you'll say thank you good [ __ ]

[ __ ] off folks